UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


^$^L 


IN  MANY  PULPITS 

WITH 

DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD 

EDITOR  OF  THE   SCOFIELD  REFERENCE   BIBLE 


NEW   YORK 
OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

American  Branch:  35  West  32D  Street 

LONDON,  TORONTO,  MELBOURNE  &  BOMBAY 

1922 


Copyright,  1922 

by  Oxford  University  Press 

american  branch 


PBINTF.D   IN    UNITED   STATES  OF  AMF.BICA 


:■' 


■S> 


I 


10 
HETTIE 

to 

CO 

MY    CHERISHED    WIFE 
AND    CO-WORKER 


THROUGH    SO    MANY,    MANY    YEARS, 
I    DEDICATE    THIS    BOOK. 


LIST  OF  SERMONS 

PAGE 

The  Best  of  All  Good  Resolutions i 

Waiting  on  the  Lord 1 1 

The  Deity  of  Jesus  Christ 21 

The  Most  Important  Question  Ever  Asked 41 

Man,  A  Three-Fold  Being 49 

The  Unrecognized  Christ 59 

Is  Life  Worth  Living  ? 69 

"  By  Grace  Through  Faith  " 79 

Barabbas  or  Christ 95 

The  Demon  of  Worry 107 

Prayer 115 

Who  is  My  Neighbor? 125 

The  God  of  Jacob 135 

Song  or  Echo  —  Which? 149 

Did  Jesus  Rise? 159 

The  Bible 171 

Quo  Vadis? 191 

The  Test  of  True  Spirituality 201 

Serving  Christ 213 

Out  of  Bondage 225 

The  Mystery  of  Godliness 239 

Glorying  in  the  Cross 255 

The  Heavenly  Pattern 267 

Compensating  Visions 277 

Busy  about  the  Wrong  Thing 287 

Joy 297 

The  Loveliness  of  Christ 309 


FOREWORD 

TV/TY  withdrawal  from  pastoral  work  that  I  might 

prepare  for  publication  the  Scofield  Reference 

Bible,  made  possible  the  larger  pulpit  ministry  to 

which  many  doors  in  the  United  States,  England, 

Scotland,  the  North  of  Ireland  and  Canada  were 

open.    From  that  ministry  this  book  is  a  selection. 

Some  sermons  preached  to  my  own  people  in  Dallas, 

Texas,  and  East  Northfield,  Massachusetts,  are  also 

included. 

C.  I.  Scofield 

Greyshingles, 
douglaston,  l.  i. 
February,  192 1 


THE   BEST   OF   ALL   GOOD 
RESOLUTIONS 


THE   BEST   OF  ALL   GOOD 
RESOLUTIONS 

"I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  father,  and  will  say  unto  him, 
Father,  I  have  sinned"  —  Luke  15:18 

I  DO  not  know  what  day  of  what  month  of  what 
year  the  prodigal  said  that,  but  I  do  know  that 
for  him  it  was  the  real  New  Year  —  the  real  begin- 
ning of  life.  The  children  of  Israel  sacrificed  the 
Passover  in  Egypt  on  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  month 
of  Abib,  but  they  were  made  to  revise  their  whole 
chronology  because  of  that  event. 

"This  month  shall  be  unto  you  the  beginning  of  months:" 

—  Exodus  12:2 

No  man  who  is  wrong  with  God  is  really  living. 
In  the  deepest  of  all  senses,  he  is  like  the  corpse  in 
the  death  ceremony  of  an  ancient  people,  who  dressed 
in  costliest  attire  the  body  of  a  dead  friend  and 
carried  it  about  to  their  houses,  seating  it  at  their 
tables  before  the  finest  feasts.  The  cheeks  were 
painted  to  represent  life  and  the  most  flattering 
compliments  were  paid  to  what,  after  all,  was  a  mere 
dead  body. 

Let  us  consider  together  this  good  resolution  of  the 

3 


4  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

boy  in  the  old  parable.  It  was  for  him  the  best  of 
good  resolutions,  because  it  began  with  the  most  im- 
portant fact  in  his  life  —  the  fact  of  his  father.  And 
the  most  important  fact  in  the  whole  universe  to  each 
one  of  us  is  the  fact  of  God.  We  are  in  God's  uni- 
verse and  we  cannot  get  out  of  it.  God  made  it, 
God  sustains  it,  God  rules  it.  It  is  all  His.  Every 
acre  of  ground,  every  blade  of  grass,  every  one  of 
the  cattle  upon  earth's  thousand  hills,  every  spring 
of  water,  every  bird,  every  fish,  every  molecule  of 
air  —  all  are  His.  He  has  never  parted  with  His  title 
to  one  of  these  things.  We  are  all  tenants  by  suffer- 
ance. We  till  God's  earth,  breathe  God's  air,  sustain 
life  upon  His  bounty.  We  are  absolute  paupers,  from 
king  to  peasant.  The  next  moment,  the  next  breath 
are  not  ours. 

Furthermore  we  all  want  to  go  to  God's  heaven 
when  we  die.  There  is  no  other  heaven.  Money 
can  neither  buy  nor  make  heaven.  The  world,  for 
whose  opinion  we  care  so  much,  has  no  heaven. 
Satan  has  no  heaven.  The  heavenly  things  which 
are  available  here  and  now  —  unselfishness,  helpful- 
ness, purity,  high  and  noble  thinking,  clean  living, 
love  —  these  are  all  God's.  Think  then  of  the  folly 
of  living  on  wrong  terms  with  God.  Think  of  the 
unspeakable  unreason  of  supposing  that  anything  in 
life  can  be  really  right,  till  we  are  right  with  God. 

But  who  and  what  is  God?  Creation  is  an  answer 
to  that  question.  God  is  the  Being  who  made  this 
fair  universe.  He  it  is,  who  made  this  wonderful 
earth  for  man,  and  man  for  this  wonderful  earth. 


WITH   DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  5 

He  it  is  who  adorned  the  heavens  and  sprinkled 
them  with  stars.  He  it  is  who  painted  the  flowers. 
And  it  is  He  who  made  us  capable  of  love  and  all 
the  blessed  relationships  of  life.  That  is  one  answer. 
The  Bible  is  another.  God  is  the  God  of  the 
Scriptures.  The  Bible  is  the  most  human  book  in 
the  world,  because  it  reveals  God  at  work  in  human 
lives,  and  at  last  reveals  Him  in  the  terms  of  a 
human  life.    What  is  God  like?    He  is  like  Jesus. 

"He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father;"  —  John  14:9 

And  in  all  the  Book  of  God  there  is  no  more  allur- 
ing portrait  of  God  than  that  painted  by  the  Son  of 
God  in  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son. 

What  is  God  like?    Like  this: 

"But  when  he  was  yet  a  great  way  off,  his  father  saw  him, 
and  had  compassion,  and  ran,  and  fell  on  his  neck,  and 
kissed  him."  —  Luke  15:20 

"But  the  father  said,  to  his  servants,  Bring  forth  the  best 
robe,  and  put  it  on  him;  and  put  a  ring  on  his  hand,  and 
shoes  on  his  feet: 

And  bring  hither  the  fatted  calf,  and  kill  it;  and  let  us 
eat,  and  be  merry: 

For  this  my  son  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again;  he  was  lost, 
and  is  found."  —  Luke  15:22-24 

We  are  all  prodigal  sons.  The  son  in  the  parable 
committed  his  worst  sin  when  he  wished  to  be  in- 
dependent of  his  father.    When  he  said: 

"Father,  give  me  the  portion  of  goods  that  falleth  to  me" 

—  Luke  15:12 


6  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

his  heart  was  already  in  the  far  country.  The  riotous 
living  and  the  wasting  of  his  substance  were  but 
details  and  mere  incidental  consequences.  The  Bible 
says  that  sin  is  anomia  —  lawlessness.  When  Isaiah 
says  that 

"We  have  turned  every  one  to  his  own  way;"  —  Isaiah  53:6 

it  does  not  seem  like  a  very  serious  charge.  But  it 
is  the  sum  of  all  iniquities.  Self-will  is  the  Pandora's 
box  out  of  which  come  all  the  evils  of  earth.  We 
have  treated  God  evilly.  The  meanness  of  sin  is  that 
it  robs  a  loving  God  of  the  love  and  fellowship  which 
are  his  due. 

When  David  said  of  his  greatest  sin, 

"Against  thee,  thee  only,  have  I  sinned,"  —  Psalms  51:4 

we  do  not  at  once  see  the  truth  of  his  bitter  words. 
First  of  all,  we  think  that  his  sins  were  against  the 
husband  whom  he  had  wronged  and  the  wife  whom 
he  had  degraded.  But  whose  creatures  were  these? 
They  were  God's;  and  every  sin  against  a  fellow 
man  is  tenfold  more  a  sin  against  God. 

This  prodigal  about  whom  we  are  thinking,  doubt- 
less did  many  a  kindly  act  in  the  far  country.  It 
is  the  way  of  prodigals  to  be  generous  and  to  wish 
all  men  well.  You  and  I  have  done  that.  We  have 
had  kindly  thoughts  and  good  intentions.  We  have 
wished  other  prodigals  happy  new  years  with  all 
sincerity,  and  because  of  this,  have  thought  well  of 
ourselves. 


WITH    DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  7 

On  one  of  Mr.  Moody's  western  campaigns,  he  was 
followed  from  city  to  city  by  an  aged  and  broken 
man  of  venerable  appearance  who,  in  each  place, 
asked  the  privilege  of  saying  a  word  to  the  great 
congregations.  He  would  stand  up  and  in  a  quaver- 
ing voice  say:  "Is  my  son  George  in  this  place? 
George,  are  you  here?  O,  George,  if  you  are  here, 
come  to  me.  Your  old  father  loves  you,  George,  and 
can't  die  content  without  seeing  you  again."  Then 
the  old  man  would  sit  down.  One  night  a  young 
man  came  to  Mr.  Moody's  hotel  and  asked  to  see 
him.  It  was  George.  When  the  great  evangelist 
asked  him  how  he  could  find  it  in  his  heart  to  treat  a 
loving  father  with  such  cruel  neglect,  the  young  man 
said:  "I  never  thought  of  him;  but  Mr.  Moody,  I 
have  tried  to  do  all  the  good  I  could."  That  is  a  good 
picture  of  a  self-righteous  prodigal  in  the  far  country. 
He  was  generous  with  his  money  and  with  his  words 
—  yet  every  moment  of  his  infamous  life  he  was 
trampling  on  the  heart  of  a  loving  father. 

The  other  day,  I  met  a  foul  old  sot  whom  I 
knew  as  a  beautiful  boy  and  later  as  a  handsome 
and  high-spirited  young  man.  But  he  was  no  more 
in  the  far  country  when  I  met  him  in  his  degrada- 
tion than  he  was  when  I  parted  with  him  in  the  pride 
of  his  youth.  The  far  country  is  anywhere  away 
from  God. 

Did  you  ever  think  of  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal 
Son  as  an  unfinished  story?  Why  have  we  no  account 
of  the  boy  after  he  came  back  to  his  father's  house? 


s  IN   MANY    PULPITS 

Perhaps  you  have  all  felt  what  some  forgotten  po< 
has  expressed  so  well: 

'You  have  told  me,  preacher,  the  story  sweet, 
How  the  prodigal  son,  bereft  of  pride, 
Left  the  far  country  with  wayworn  feet 
And  came  back  to  his  father's  house  to  bide. 
You  have  told  of  the  father,  unfailing,  fond, 
You  have  told  of  the  ring,  of  the  robe,  of  the  feast; 
Of  the  long  night's  revel  all  care  beyond, 
Till  the  Syrian  stars  grew  pale  in  the  East. 
But,  O,  could  I  more  of  the  tale  invoke, 
I  would  pray  you  tell  me,  thou  man  of  God, 
How  it  fared  with  the  boy  when  the  morning  broke, 
And  his  feet  the  old  pathway  of  duty  trod? 
Did  he  never  forget  that  he  ate  with  swine 
And  suffered  sore  'neath  far-off  skies, 
Remembering  only  the  nights  of  wine, 
And  the  light  in  the  dancing  woman's  eyes? 
Did  he  never  go  frantic  with  equal  days, 
And  long  to  the  wide  world  prisoner-wise, 
Till  a  host  rose  up  from  the  banished  ways 
To  beckon,  and  beckon,  with  gleaming  eyes? 
If  thus  he  fared3  as  we  fare  today, 
O  speak,  that  the  world  may  sing  with  joy, 
And  tell  how  the  father  could  banish  away 
The  beckoning  hands  from  before  his  boy." 

Ah,  that  is  why  the  story  seems  unfinishe< 
When  we  have  really  come  back  from  the  far  countr 
when  through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  we  have  corr 
to  God  and  have  found  Him,  through  the  new  birtl 
our  Father,  —  a  new  story  begins,  and  it  takes  a 
eternity  to  tell  it. 

There  is  a  way  from  the  far  country  to  the  Father 
arms.    The  actual  journey  of  the  prodigal  may  ha\ 


WITH   DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  9 

been  across  forbidding  mountains  and  along  caravan 
trails  over  blinding  deserts.  No  such  obstacles  in- 
tervene between  the  returning  sinner  and  God.  The 
blessed  Christ  from  whose  lips  fell  the  tender  story 
about  which  we  have  been  thinking,  also  said: 

"I  am  the  way,"  —  John  14:6 

When  we  come  to  Christ  we  find  the  Father,  for 
Christ  and  the  Father  are  one.  And  the  way  to 
come  to  Christ  is  to  believe  on  Him;  to  put  our 
whole  life  into  His  care  and  ordering,  knowing  that 
He  has  put  away  our  sin  by  the  sacrifice  of  Himself, 
and  that  all  who  come  unto  the  Father  by  Him  can 
never  more  lose  the  way.    Let  us  say: 

"I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  father,  and  will  say  unto  him, 
Father,  I  have  sinned"  —  Luke  15:18 

"but  know  Thou  hast  saved  me  through  Jesus  Christ." 


WAITING   ON  THE   LORD 


WAITING   ON  THE   LORD 

"But  they  that  wait  upon  the  Lord  shall  renew  their  strength; 
they  shall  mount  up  with  wings  as  eagles;  they  shall  run 
and  not  be  weary;  and  they  shall  walk,  and  not  faint."  — 
Isaiah  40:31 

LET  us  confess  at  once  that  these  blessings  are 
not  usual  in  the  lives  of  Christians.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  we  run  and  are  weary,  we  walk  and  do  faint. 
The  wings  of  our  soul  do  not  habitually  beat  the 
upper  air.  On  the  face  of  it,  it  is  very  simple. 
There  is  a  condition  entirely  within  the  reach  of  every 
Christian,  whatever  may  be  his  age  or  environment, 
and  then  resultant  blessings  made  sure  by  the  "shall" 
of  Almighty  God: 

"They  that  wait  upon  the  Lord  shall  renew  their  strength; 
they  shall  mount  up  with  wings  as  eagles;  they  shall  run, 
and  not  be  weary;  and  they  shall  walk,  and  not  faint." 

—  Isaiah  40:31 

If  there  is  one  condition  thus  performed,  the  re- 
sultant blessings  are  sure ;  obviously  then  the  absence 
of  the  blessing  proves  that  we  do  not  meet  the  condi- 
tion. Perhaps  we  have  never  stopped  to  read  it 
very  carefully.    We  like  certain  promises  of  Scripture 

13 


14  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

largely  because  we  feel  there  is  something  strong, 
beautiful  and  triumphant  in  them,  but  we  do  not 
really  consider  what  they  mean.  What  does  the 
Scripture  mean  by  "waiting  on  the  Lord?"  Every- 
thing hinges  on  that.  It  is  the  sole  condition.  First 
of  all,  waiting  upon  God  is  not  praying.  Praying 
is  petitioning  God  for  something.    Praying  is 

"supplication  with  thanksgiving,"  —  Philipptans  4:6 

It  has  its  own  great  and  unique  place  in  the  Christian 
life,  but  it  is  not  waiting  upon  the  Lord. 

Three  Hebrew  words  are  translated  "wait"  in  this 
connection,  and  three  passages  may  serve  to  illustrate 
their  meaning. 

"Truly  my  soul  waiteth  upon  God."  —  Psalms  62:1 

The  literal  translation  of  this  is  "Truly  my  soul 
is  silent  upon  God."  That  is  not  prayer,  it  is  not 
worship.  It  is  the  soul,  in  utter  hush  and  quietness, 
casting  itself  upon  God.  Take  another  illustrative 
passage. 

"These  wait  all  upon  thee;   that  thou  mayest  give  them 
their  meat  in  due  season."  —  Psalms  104:27 

Here  the  word  is  the  same,  but  it  implies  both  de- 
pendence and  expectation  —  a  faith  that  silently 
reaches  out  to  take  hold  upon  God,  and  which  has  its 
expectation  from  God.    Then 

"Blessed  is  the  man  that  heareth  me,  watching  daily  at 
my  gates,  waiting  at  the  posts  of  my  doors." 

—  Proverbs  8:34 


WITH   DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  15 

The  thought  there  is  of  a  servant  and  his  master. 
He  has  no  service  just  at  that  moment,  but  he  "waits" 
at  the  door,  knowing  that  at  any  moment  the  door 
may  swing  back  and  the  master  may  say,  "My  ser- 
vant, go;  do  this  or  that."  It  is  the  attitude  of 
readiness,  of  obedience. 

Now  I  think  we  are  ready  to  gather  these  passages 
into  a  definition  of  what  waiting  upon  God  means. 
To  wait  upon  God  is  to  be  silent  that  He  may  speak, 
expecting  all  things  from  Him,  and  girded  for  instant, 
unquestioning  obedience  to  the  slightest  movement 
of  His  will.  That  is  waiting  upon  God.  All  the 
spiritual  senses  alive,  alert,  expectant,  separated  unto 
Him,  His  servant  and  soldier  —  waiting.  It  is  not 
the  waiting  of  an  idler,  it  is  not  the  waiting  of  a 
dreamer.  It  is  the  quiet  waiting  of  one  who  is  girt 
and  ready,  one  who  looks  upon  life  as  a  battle-field 
and  a  sphere  for  service,  who  has  one  master  and 
but  one,  to  whom  he  looks  for  everything,  from  whom 
alone  he  expects  anything.  This  is  waiting  upon 
God  according  to  the  Scriptures. 

Now,  glorious  blessings  depend  upon  this  attitude 
toward  God.  Are  we  waiting?  Are  we  silent  upon 
God?  Is  our  expectation  from  Him,  or  from  our- 
selves, or  from  the  world?  If  our  expectation  is 
truly  from  Him,  and  we  are  willing  to  yield  Him 
an  immediate  obedience,  then  we  are  waiting  upon 
God.  Then  the  four  blessings  of  the  text  must  fol- 
low, because  God  says  they  shall.  Let  us  look  at 
these  blessings. 


16  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

•  liny     that    wait     upon     the    Lord    shall    renew    their 
strength."  —  Isaiah  40:31 

The  word  "renew"  rendered  literally  is  "change"  — 
they  shall  change  their  strength.  It  is  a  word  used 
to  denote  a  change  of  garments.  They  shall  lay 
aside  their  strength  and  put  on,  as  a  garment,  strength 
from  God.  This  whole  fortieth  chapter  of  Isaiah  is 
a  series  of  contrasts  between  the  frailty  and  feeble- 
ness of  man  and  the  strength  and  greatness  of  God. 
Yet  man  is  a  being  who  fancies  that  he  has  some 
strength.  And  so  indeed  he  has  in  the  sphere  of  the 
natural,  but  it  is  a  strength  which  utterly  breaks 
down  in  the  sphere  of  the  Christian  life.  The  prob- 
lem is  to  rid  ourselves  of  self-strength  that  God  may 
clothe  us  with  His  own  strength ;  and  this  is  the  first 
blessing  promised  to  those  who 

"wait  upon  the  LORD."  —  Isaiah  40:31 

How  does  God  effect  this?  I  do  not  know,  but  I 
know  that  somehow  when  we  are  waiting  upon  Him, 
our  strength,  which  after  all  is  perfect  weakness,  is 
laid  aside,  and  divine  hands  clothe  us  with  the 
strength  of  God.    We  do  change  our  strength. 

We  now  come  logically  to  that  great  second  bless- 
ing promised  to  the  waiters  upon  the  Lord: 

"They  shall  mount  up  with  wings  as  eagles."  —  Isaiah  40:31 

What  does  that  mean?  Why  as  eagles?  Why  not 
with  wings  as  doves?  I  think  it  is  because  the  eagle 
is  the  only  bird  that  goes  so  high  that  he  is  lost  to 


WITH   DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  17 

sight  in  the  upper  heights.  Think  of  some  of  the 
peculiarities  of  the  eagle.  He  is  the  most  solitary  of 
birds.  Did  you  ever  see  or  hear  of  a  flock  of  eagles? 
You  may  sometimes  see  two  together,  but  very 
rarely.  His  eyrie  is  on  some  beetling,  inaccessible 
crag.  The  eagle  has  to  do  with  great  things,  moun- 
tains and  heights  and  depths.  An  eagle  can  also  be 
very  still.  No  creature  holds  such  reserves  of  quiet- 
ness; there  is  no  restlessness  in  him.  There  is  the 
repose  of  perfect  power.  He  can  be  quiet  when  it  is 
time  to  be  quiet.  But  when  the  sun  rises  and  his  eye 
catches  the  first  ray,  you  may  see  him  stretch  his 
mighty  wings,  launch  out  over  the  abyss  and  begin 
that  tremendous  spiral  flight  up,  up,  up,  higher  and 
higher,  until  he  is  lost  to  sight;  and  all  day,  on 
balanced  wing,  he  is  there  in  the  vast  upper  realm 
of  light,  above  all  storms,  in  the  great  tranquillity 
of  the  upper  spaces.  That  is  mounting  up  with  wings 
as  eagles.  To  be  up  there,  as  we  might  say,  with 
God.  No  Christian  ever  comes  into  God's  best  things 
who  does  not,  upon  the  Godward  side  of  his  life, 
learn  to  walk  alone  with  God.  Lot  may  dwell  in 
Sodom  and  vex  his  righteous  soul  with  the  filthy  con- 
versation of  the  wicked,  but  God  will  have  Abraham 
up  in  Hebron  upon  the  heights.  It  is  Abraham  whom 
He  visits  and  to  whom  He  tells  His  secrets.  Moses, 
learned  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians,  must  go 
forty  years  into  the  desert  to  be  alone  with  God. 
Paul,  who  knew  the  Greek  learning  and  had  also  sat 
at  the  feet  of  Gamaliel,  must  go  into  Arabia  and 
learn  the  desert  life  with  God. 


is  IN     MANY    PULPITS 

Before  God  uses  a  man  greatly,  He  isolates  him. 
He  gives  him  a  separating  experience;  and  when  it 
is  over,  those  about  him,  who  are  no  less  loved  than 
before,  are  no  longer  depended  upon.  He  realizes 
that  he  is  separated  unto  God,  that  the  wings  of  his 
soul  have  learned  to  beat  the  upper  air,  and  that 
God  has  shown  him  unspeakable  things. 

1 1"  we  mount  up  with  wings  as  eagles  we  shall  often 
grieve  the  judicious,  and  must  count  upon  some  ex- 
perience of  misunderstanding;  but  we  can  keep  sweet 
about  it.  We  may  avoid  this.  We  may  nest  low 
enough  to  be  understood  by  the  carnal,  turn  sedately 
the  ecclesiastical  crank,  and  be  approved;  but  if  we 
take  the  upper  air,  we  must,  like  the  eagle,  go  alone. 
That  is  precisely  our  calling.  Christ  will  never  be 
satisfied  until  He  has  each  one  of  us  separated  unto 
Himself.    Hear: 

"  If  ye  then  be  risen  with  Christ,  seek  those  things  which 
are  above."  —  Colossians  3:1 

How  far  above? 

"Where  Christ  sitteth  on  the  right  hand  of  God." 

—  Colossians  3:1 

Stretch  the  pinions  of  your  soul,  remember  that  you 
belong  up  there,  and  beat  the  lower  air  and  rise  and 
rise  until  you  are  with  the  enthroned  One.  You 
remember  John  McNeil's  story  of  the  captive  eagle. 
A  man  had  a  young  eagle  which  he  put  in  the  hen 
yard  with  a  clog  on  one  of  its  feet,  so  that  it  could  not 
fly,  and  there  it  grew  up.     At  last,  when  the  man 


WITH   DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  19 

was  going  to  move  away  from  that  part  of  the  coun- 
try, he  decided  to  liberate  his  eagle.  He  took  off  the 
clog,  but  the  eagle  went  hopping  about  just  the  same. 
So  very  early  one  morning  he  took  the  eagle  and  set 
him  upon  the  coping  of  the  wall  just  as  the  sun  was 
rising.  The  eagle  opened  his  eyes  and  looked  for  the 
first  time  at  the  rising  sun.  Then,  lifting  himself  up 
he  stretched  his  mighty  wings,  and  with  one  scream 
launched  himself  into  the  upper  air.  He  belonged 
up  there  all  the  while,  and  had  simply  been  living  in 
the  wrong  place. 

Now  another  blessing,  the  third: 

"They  shall  run,  and  not  be  weary."  —  Isaiah  40:31 

That  seems  like  an  anti-climax,  as  does  the  fourth 
blessing: 

"They  shall  walk,  and  not  faint."  —  Isaiah  40:31 

What!  must  we  come  down  and  run  and  walk  here 
on  this  stupid,  prosaic  earth  after  these  eagle  flights? 
Yes,  precisely.  The  eagle  flight  is  unto  that.  We  go 
up  there  that  we  may  serve  down  here,  and  we  never 
can  serve  down  here  according  to  God's  thought  of 
service,  until  we  trace  the  spirals  of  the  upper  air 
and  have  learned  to  be  alone  in  the  silent  spaces  with 
God.  It  is  only  the  man  who  comes  down  from  inter- 
views with  God  who  can  touch  human  lives  with  the 
power  of  God.  Yes,  we  must  run  down  here,  and 
walk  down  here,  but  only  in  the  degree  in  which  we 
know  the  inspiration  of  the  upper  air  can  we  either 
run  without  weariness,  or  walk  without  fainting. 


20  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

What  is  the  "walk"?  It  is  the  everyday  of  life. 
It  is  the  getting  breakfast,  dressing  the  children,  get- 
ting them  oii  to  school;  it  is  going  down  and  opening 
the  store;  it  is  going  out  and  feeding  the  herds;  it 
is  going  into  the  study  and  opening  the  Word  of  God. 
It  is  whatever  our  appointed  task  may  be.  It  is  do- 
ing this  all  day,  in  heat  and  cold,  dull  days  and  bright 
days  —  the  common  life.  It  is  this,  the  everyday 
walk,  that  tests  and  tries.  Far  easier  is  it  to  gather 
one's  energies  for  a  swift  run  sometimes  than  it  is 
to  walk.  But  we  have  to  walk;  we  are  made  to 
walk.  We  live  a  common  life,  a  life  of  everyday 
duty,  plain,  prosaic  and  unbeautiful. 

But  we  may 

"walk,  and  not  faint"  —  Isaiah  40:31 

under  the  wear  and  petty  vexations  and  frictions  of 
everyday  life,  only  on  condition  that  we  have  been 
"waiting  upon  God."  The  man  who  does  that  will 
be  a  reservoir  of  sweetness,  quietness  and  power. 


THE  DEITY  OF  JESUS   CHRIST 


THE  DEITY  OF  JESUS    CHRIST 

"In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with 
God,  and  the  Word  was  God."  —  John  1:1 

I  WANT  to  present  to  you,  as  best  I  may,  the 
grounds  upon  which  Christians  receive  Jesus 
Christ  as  God  manifest  in  the  flesh.  Beyond  all 
question,  Christianity  as  a  religion  is  committed  to 
that  proposition.  Whatever  it  may  call  itself,  any- 
thing less  than  that  is  not  Christianity.  Eliminate 
that  and  there  is  left  a  marvelous  story,  indeed,  but 
like  a  box  of  wonderful  gems  to  which  the  key  is 
missing;  there  is  left  a  wonderful  ethic  but  without 
adequate  authority;  there  is  left  the  promise  of  a 
great  spiritual  kingdom,  but  the  kingdom  is  without 
a  king. 

Christianity  stands  or  falls  by  the  proposition  that 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  more  than  man;  in  other 
words,  while  being  man,  that  He  was  God  manifest  in 
the  flesh.  That  is  a  stupendous  assertion,  but  God, 
my  dear  friends,  does  not  ask  us  to  believe  it  without 
proof.  What  then  are  the  reasons  why  we  Christians 
receive  Jesus  Christ  as  God  manifest  in  the  flesh? 

Now,  I  shall  feel  more  comfortable  as  I  go  on, 
if  I  say  at  the  outset  that  the  merits  of  my  cause 

23 


24  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

should  not  be  judged  by  my  ability  in  presenting  it. 
Truth  itself  transcends  the  ability  of  any  man  to 
present  it.  All  the  more  then,  if  the  reasons  them- 
selves shall  seem  to  you  to  be  convincing  and  the 
proofs  shall  seem  to  you  to  be  adequate,  will  you  as 
honest  nun  be  under  compulsion  to  accept  them. 
Give  me,  then,  your  attention  to  that  cumulative  body 
of  truth  which  establishes  beyond  all  question  this 
proposition  —  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  historic 
Christ,  was  God  manifest  in  the  flesh. 

First,  the  four  Gospels  present  the  record  of  a  life 
and  the  impress  of  a  character  which  are  absolutely 
unique.  The  Jesus  of  the  Gospels  stands  alone.  He 
makes  a  class  by  Himself.  There  are  points  of  re- 
semblance between  Cincinnatus  and  Washington;  be- 
tween Caesar  and  Napoleon;  between  Chaucer  and 
Shakespeare;  between  Hesiod  and  Homer;  between 
Dante  and  Milton;  but  Jesus  is  alone  unique. 

I  will  not  stop  to  prove  that,  because  no  one  denies 
it,  but  I  ask  you  to  take  note  of  three  respects  in 
which  the  character  presented  in  these  four  Gospels 
stands  solitary  among  men.  First,  in  that  it  is  abso- 
lutely without  sin.  Now,  neither  in  Scripture,  nor  in 
history,  nor  in  fiction,  nor  in  our  own  observation,  do 
we  find  another  of  which  that  can  be  said.  History 
gives  the  record  of  no  sinless  men.  Fiction  has  never 
yet  presented  a  perfect  character.  The  effort  has 
been  made  a  thousand  times,  but  upon  the  most  per- 
fect character  ever  constructed  by  the  genius  of  man 
is  some  fatal  defect,  some  taint  of  imperfection.  Did 
it  not  lead  too  far  from  the  subject,  it  would  be  in- 


WITH   DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  25 

teresting  to  take  up  some  of  the  most  perfect  char- 
acters in  the  Bible,  in  history  and  in  fiction,  and 
show  how  true  it  is  that,  tested  even  by  our  own  im- 
perfect standards,  there  is,  in  the  best  of  them,  some 
obvious  defect.  They  are  too  strong  or  too  weak; 
they  are  too  tender  or  too  severe ;  they  are  all  marked 
by  excess  in  one  direction  and  limitation  in  another. 
Not  one  but  bears  the  mark  of  human  frailty  and 
imperfection.  But  the  four  Gospels  present  a  sinless 
life.  It  is  not  merely  that  the  four  Evangelists  assert 
that  fact;  they  give  us  the  life  itself,  so  that  we  may 
see  for  ourselves  that  it  was  sinless. 

Again,  the  man  of  the  Gospels  is  unique  in  that  He 
is  the  only  absolutely  universal  man,  the  only  cath- 
olic man,  the  only  man  with  no  race  mark  upon  Him, 
and  who,  as  He  reaches  the  differing  families  of  men, 
interposes  no  race  barrier.  We  know  as  a  matter  of 
history  that  He  sprang  out  of  Israel,  that  He  was  a 
Jew,  and  we  are  called  to  account  for  the  fact  that  out 
of  that  most  exclusive,  most  distinctive,  most  peculiar 
of  all  peoples,  should  have  come  the  one  universal 
man,  who  has  no  mark  of  race  upon  Him.  You  know 
how  instinctively  this  has  been  brought  out  in  art. 

As  the  gospel  spread  through  Europe,  there  sprang 
up  great  schools  of  Christian  art.  Men  strove  to  put 
on  canvas  and  to  carve  in  stone,  their  conception  of 
the  Christ.  A  very  remarkable  thing  about  it  was 
that  a  Scandinavian  always  painted  the  Christ  as 
blue  of  eye  and  fair  of  hair,  just  as  an  Italian  always 
painted  Him  with  dark  locks  and  olive  skin.  It  never 
seems  to  have  occurred  to  them  that  He  was  not  of 
their  own  race. 


26  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

One  of  the  missionaries  in  Africa  tells  us  that 
native  converts  in  the  heart  of  that  country  were 
greatly  surprised  when  they  were  told  that  Christ 
was  a  white  man  —  it  never  occurred  to  them  that  He 
was  not  black  like  themselves.  Now,  this  universality 
would  be  singular  enough  if  Christ  came  of  Rome, 
or  of  Greece,  if  He  had  been  born  in  one  of  the  world 
empires;  but  He  came  out  of  a  little  nation  which  has 
ever  had  the  strongest  marks  of  race  distinction  and 
race  peculiarity.  More  than  this,  He  grew  to  man- 
hood in  a  remote  village  of  Galilee,  far  from  the 
slightest  cosmopolitan  influence.  Try  to  imagine  a 
Scotchman  two  hundred  years  ago,  who  had  grown  to 
manhood  in  Inverness,  having  no  marks  of  the  Scot 
upon  him.  Shakespeare,  who  has  been  called  the 
most  impersonal  of  all  men,  was  an  Englishman  to 
his  fingertips,  and  Homer  was  a  Greek  through  and 
through.  No  human  being,  save  Christ,  ever  escaped 
a  race  mark. 

The  third  respect  in  which  the  man  of  the  four 
Gospels  is  unique,  is  that  He  was  as  perfect  in  the 
balance  and  proportion  of  His  qualities  as  He  was  in 
His  sinlessness.  Not  only  was  He  a  sinless  man,  but 
He  was  a  perfect  man,  a  rounded  man.  Now  all  other 
wisdom  has  been  marred  by  some  folly,  all  other 
strength  has  gone  over  into  excess  or  violence,  all 
other  sweetness  has  degenerated  into  weakness.  But 
Jesus  was  wise  without  folly,  strong  without  vio- 
lence, sweet  without  weakness. 

In  these  three  respects,  this  man  of  the  Gospels 
stands  alone  among  all  men,  the  records  of  whose 


WITH   DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  27 

lives  have  come  down  to  us,  or  which  have  been  in- 
vented by  the  genius  of  man. 

Leaving  the  Gospels  now,  and  coming  on  down  the 
stream  of  time  for  the  last  1900  or  more  years,  we  find 
the  influence  of  Jesus  in  human  history  has  been  as 
unique  as  his  sinlessness,  his  catholicity,  or  his  per- 
fectness.  In  all  history,  no  one  else  has  influenced  the 
course  of  human  affairs  or  the  trend  of  human  lives 
just  as  the  man  of  the  four  Gospels  has  influenced 
them. 

Napoleon,  speaking  of  Alexander,  Caesar  and  him- 
self, said:  "We  founded  great  empires,  but  we 
founded  them  on  force.  The  principles  upon  which 
we  founded  our  kingdoms  were  natural  principles, 
but  Jesus  founded  an  empire  which  is  indestructible, 
which  is  growing  day  by  day,  which  is  ruled  over  by 
an  invisible  king,  and  which  is  founded  upon  love. 
I,"  said  he,  "know  man,  and  I  tell  you  that  Jesus 
was  more  than  man."  In  history  then  we  have  the 
impress  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  impress  is  just 
as  unique  and  peculiar  as  all  else  which  concerns 
Him.    These  things  are  indisputable. 

Now,  the  startling  fact  concerning  this  entirely 
unique  impress  of  Himself  upon  humanity  is  that 
Jesus  said  it  would  be  so.    He  said  for  instance: 

"I  am  the  light  of  the  world:"  —  John  8:12 

Think  of  the  audacity  of  that  statement.  A  young 
Jewish  peasant,  a  carpenter  by  trade,  without  learn- 
ing, without  acknowledged  rank,  without  wealth,  an- 


28  IN    MAW    PULPITS 

nounces  to  a  little  group  of  converted  fishermen  and 
harlots  and  tax  gatherers,  that  lie  is  the  "Light  of 
the  World."  When  uttered,  it  was  a  mere  assertion, 
but  alter  1900  years  have  passed,  it  is  a  statement 
which  admits  of  disproof  if  it  is  not  true,  or  of  veri- 
fication if  it  is  true.  Think  of  the  audacity  of  it! 
Not  Homer,  not  Socrates,  not  Plato,  not  Moses  — 
it  is  no  one  of  these,  but  a  peasant,  who  says: 

"I  am  the  light  of  the  world."  —  John  8:12 

Well,  after  more  than  1900  years,  you  may  take  the 
map  of  the  world,  and  shade  that  map  according  to 
the  degree  of  enlightenment,  moral  and  intellectual, 
which  prevails  today  among  the  nations,  and  you 
will  find  that  where  your  map  comes  nearest  to  per- 
fect whiteness,  there  Christ  is  most  known  and  most 
honored;  and  where  your  map  shades  off  into  abso- 
lute blackness,  where  the  human  mind  today  is  in 
chains  and  darkness,  where  there  is  no  picture,  no 
statue,  and  no  book,  right  there  Christ  is  not  known 
at  all. 

Dear  friends,  here  are  these  undisputed  phenom- 
ena. No  one  can  or  does  dispute  them,  and  they 
are  to  be  accounted  for.  That  explanation  which 
adequately  accounts  for  them  all,  is  the  one  upon 
which  reason  will  set  her  seal.  Is  not  that  a  reason- 
able statement?  You  may  be  interested  to  know 
that  that  formula  belongs  to  the  vocabulary  of  the 
exact  sciences,  not  to  theology.  In  the  investigation 
of  nature  certain  material  phenomena  are  to  be  ac- 


WITH   DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  29 

counted  for,  and  science  says:  "That  explanation 
which  adequately  accounts  for  them  all,  is  the  true 
explanation,"  and  reason  says  "Amen!" 

It  can  scarcely  be  necessary  to  refer  to  the  various 
theories  which  have  been  propounded  to  account 
for  the  phenomena  which  we  have  been  considering, 
but  which  have  been  abandoned  as  inadequate.  It 
was  said  for  instance,  that  Jesus  was  invented  by  the 
Evangelists;  that  the  writers  of  Matthew,  Mark, 
Luke  and  John  invented  the  character  which  they 
present.  It  was  pointed  out  long  ago,  by  the  un- 
believer Renan,  that  "only  a  Jesus  could  invent  a 
Jesus."  How  does  it  happen  that  what  the  strenuous 
efforts  of  patriarch,  prophet  and  priest  failed  to 
achieve,  what  the  sublimest  human  genius  failed  to 
invent,  these  four  writers  accomplished  with  an  ease, 
precision  and  naturalness  to  which  every  page  of  the 
artless  narrative  bears  witness?  It  puts  a  greater 
strain  upon  credulity  to  believe  that  four  men  could 
have  created  such  a  character  as  Jesus  than  to  be- 
lieve the  simple,  sublime  and  rational  Biblical  ex- 
planation of  Jesus.  How  did  it  come  that  four  dif- 
ferent accounts,  written  by  different  men  at  different 
times,  in  a  different  style,  and  selecting  for  the  illus- 
tration of  this  character  different  incidents  very 
largely,  should  all  succeed  in  producing  identically 
the  same  impression?  If  you  read  Matthew,  you 
get  the  impression  of  a  sinless  Being,  perfectly  wise 
and  universal.  If  you  read  Mark,  there  comes  to  you 
the  impression  of  the  same  sinlessness,  the  same  uni- 
versality, the  same  perfection  of  character;  and  if 


80  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

you  road  Luke  and  John,  the  impression  is  precisely 
the  same. 

It  does  violence  to  reason  and  probability  to  say 
that  such  men  could  invent  such  a  character.  But 
the  theory  has  passed  out  of  the  minds  of  men  as 
inadequate  and  irrational,  and  I  refer  to  it  merely 
to  show  how  men  have  striven  to  avoid  the  only 
reasonable  conclusion  concerning  this  character. 

Another  theory  which  had  possession  of  unbelieving 
minds  for  a  time  was  the  mythical  theory  of  Strauss, 
the  theory  which  said  that  the  Jesus  of  the  Gospels 
was  a  myth ;  that  the  Gospels,  as  we  have  them,  were 
slowly  built  up  through  some  400  years;  that  the 
first  crude  record  was  subjected  to  numberless  prun- 
ings  and  increased  by  numberless  inventions,  until 
finally  there  came  out  the  picture  which  we  have  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Well,  even  Strauss  abandoned 
this  theory  before  he  died,  and  he  did  it  for  this 
reason,  that  the  severest  hostile  criticism  was  com- 
pelled to  concede  the  authenticity  of  at  least  four  of 
the  Epistles  of  the  apostle  Paul;  that  they  were 
written  within  thirty  or  thirty-five  years  after  the 
death  of  Christ;  and  because  of  these  Epistles  of  Paul 
there  is  the  impress  of  the  same  character.  There 
are  the  same  affirmations  concerning  His  personality; 
the  same  doctrine  concerning  His  work  and  the  pur- 
pose that  brought  Him  into  the  world,  and  Strauss 
admitted  that  thirty  years  was  too  brief  a  time  for 
the  development  of  a  myth.  So  that  theory  was  aban- 
doned. Just  recently,  as  many  of  you  know,  there 
has  been  discovered  a  work,  known  once  to  have 


WITH   DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  31 

existed,  but  believed  to  have  perished,  the  Diates- 
seron  of  Tatian,  the  work  of  a  man  who  was  born 
in  the  year  in  which  the  apostle  John  died,  and  this 
work  proves  that  the  four  Gospels,  as  we  have  them, 
were  then  in  existence.  Exit,  then,  the  mythical 
theory. 

But  the  problem  remains:  we  have  to  account  for 
Jesus.  How  shall  we  do  it?  You  know  the  Biblical 
solution : 

"In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with 
God,"  —  John  1:1 

and 

"The  Word  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us"  —  John  1:14 

That  is  the  Biblical  solution.  Now,  no  one  can  ques- 
tion the  adequacy  of  this  solution;  it  perfectly  ac- 
counts for  all  the  phenomena.  If  this  unique  Being 
were  indeed  God,  "manifest  in  the  flesh,"  His  sin- 
lessness  is  accounted  for,  the  absence  of  all  race 
mark  is  accounted  for,  the  rounded  perfection  of  all 
the  attributes  of  His  character  is  accounted  for,  and 
His  unique  influence  in  the  world  is  accounted  for. 
No  one  questions  that;  it  is  a  complete  solution  of 
all  the  phenomena. 

Now  we  are  prepared  to  see  how  perfectly  this 
solution  harmonizes  with  adequate  motives  for  an 
incarnation.  First,  if  God  was  ever  to  be  fully  re- 
vealed to  man,  there  lay  upon  Him  the  inevitability 
that  He  should  do  precisely  that  thing.  All  of  nature, 
all  of  history,  all  of  the  Bible  is  in  truth  the  unveil- 
ing, the  self-disclosure  of  God.    If  you  look  out  upon 


IN   MANY    1TLPITS 

the  universe  you  see  His  handiwork.  You  remember 
how  short,  and  il  seems  to  me  unanswerable,  is  the 
apostle  Paul's  argument  from  the  universe  for  the 
existence  of  God. 

"Every  house  is  builded  by  some  man;  but  he  that  built 
all  things  is  God."  —  Hebrews  3:4 

If  we  see  a  house  we  do  not  think  that  it  was  built 
by  anything  less  than  a  man.  We  look  out  upon  this 
great  universe  and  say,  "Nothing  less  than  God  has 
been  here."  From  the  universe  we  get  a  revelation 
of  God's  power.  We  get  a  revelation  of  His  wisdom. 
But  how  far  off  that  God  is  from  a  mortal  being  on 
this  earth,  stumbling  along  a  dark  path  which  he 
never  trod  before,  and  will  never  tread  again,  to 
fall  at  last  into  an  unexplained  grave ! 

When  God  puts  His  self-revelation  into  words, 
there  is  of  course  an  immeasurable  advance,  yet 
after  all,  a  kind  of  incompleteness.  You  know  how 
we  try  sometimes  to  describe  a  thing  in  words.  Then 
we  do  better  than  that;  we  make  a  picture  of  it.  But 
when  we  are  able  to  lead  the  person  to  whom  we  are 
endeavoring  to  communicate  the  idea,  to  the  very 
thing  itself,  then  the  description  becomes  intelligible, 
the  picture  full  of  meaning. 

Suppose  I  were  trying  to  describe  to  you  the  beauty 
of  the  sunset,  and  you  had  never  seen  a  sunset.  I 
might  pile  words  upon  words  and  fill  them  with 
color,  yet  I  should  give  a  very  imperfect  idea  of  a 
sunset.  But  if  I  could  take  you  to  some  western 
slope,  and  let  you  stand  there  while  the  sun  sank 


WITH    DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  33 

behind  the  cloud-palaces  of  the  sky,  fusing  their 
dull  greys  into  purple  and  scarlet  and  gold,  and  the 
glory  and  beauty  of  the  sunset  gave  themselves  to 
you,  you  would  no  longer  need  my  words,  you  would 
know  for  yourself.  Now  there  is  God,  infinitely 
tender  and  beautiful  and  glorious,  and  here  are  we, 
finite  and  stupid  and  earthly  —  can  you  think  of  any 
way  by  which  it  would  be  possible  for  God  really  to 
make  Himself  known  to  us,  except  to  enter  into  a  hu- 
man life  and  translate  Deity  in  Its  power  and  perfec- 
tion, Its  light  and  Its  love,  into  the  terms  of  human  ex- 
perience? That  this  is  the  only  perfect  divine  mani- 
festation is  felt  dimly  by  all  races;  and  there  is  no 
false  religion  (except  Mohammedanism)  which  has 
not  the  thought  of  incarnation  in  it,  the  thought  that 
the  God  they  seek  and  whom  they  serve  and  worship, 
has  at  some  time  incarnated  himself  in  a  human  life. 
Incarnation  inheres  in  the  very  necessity  of  the  case; 
and  when  you  think  of  God  adopting  this  expedient 
and  really  clothing  Himself  with  human  flesh  for  the 
revelation  of  that  which  He  is,  through  the  stress 
and  trial  of  a  human  life,  you  have  a  motive  which 
is  at  once  God-like  and  adequate.  If  God  had  never 
been  manifested  in  the  flesh,  if  no  prophet  had  ever 
predicted  it,  reason  would  compel  us  to  anticipate  the 
incarnation. 

Now  this  very  thing  is  declared  to  have  been  the 
purpose  of  the  incarnation.    John  says: 

"No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time;  the  only  begotten 
Son,  which  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  he  hath  de- 
clared him."  —  John  1:18 


34  IN    MAW    PULPITS 

It"  you  think  of  Jesus  Christ  in  this  way,  if  you  go 
back  to  the  tour  Gospels  and  study  them  with  the 
thought  of  Jesus  Christ  as  God  making  Himself 
known  to  man,  you  find  that  the  manifestation  satis- 
fies every  demand  of  your  heart  and  of  your  reason. 
The  God  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ  is  the  God  who 
answers  in  every  respect  to  human  need.  He  is  felt  to 
be  at  once  a  God  worthy  of  adoring  worship.  He  is 
felt  to  be  a  God  of  power  and  a  God  of  wisdom,  and 
a  God  of  matchless,  inexpressible  love.  No  one  has 
ever  contemplated  the  character  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the 
manifestation  of  God  and  has  felt  repelled  from 
God  by  that  manifestation.  The  power  of  God  in 
nature  may  terrify,  and  an  imperfect  revelation  of 
God  through  written  words  may  perplex,  but  when  we 
stand  before  God  unveiled  in  Jesus  Christ,  we  love 
and  adore  Him.  It  is  impossible  not  to  do  so. 
Again,  the  prophets  foretold  the  incarnation: 

"And  he  said,  Hear  ye  now,  O  house  of  David;  Is  it  a 
small  thing  for  you  to  weary  men,  but  will  ye  weary  my 
God  also? 

Therefore  the  Lord  himself  shall  give  you  a  sign;  Be- 
hold, a  virgin  shall  conceive,  and  bear  a  son,  and  shall 
call  his  name  Immanuel."  —  Isaiah  7:13,  14 

and 

"For  unto  us  a  child  is  born,  unto  us  a  son  is  given: 
and  the  government  shall  be  upon  his  shoulder:  and  his 
name  shall  be  called  Wonderful,  Counsellor,  The  mighty 
God,  The  everlasting  Father,  The  Prince  of  Peace." 

—  Isaiah  g:6 

Thus  beyond  all  question,  hundreds  of  years  before 
Jesus  was  born  in  Bethlehem,  a  prediction  was  ut- 


WITH   DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  35 

tered  that  there  should  be  born  into  the  family  of 
David,  one  who  in  some  mysterious  way  should  also 
be  God.  We  may  or  may  not  believe  that  the  proph- 
ecy was  fulfilled,  but  that  it  is  there  no  one  can 
dispute.  Now  when  we  invoke  prophetic  testimony, 
my  friends,  we  bring  into  court  a  witness  never  yet 
discredited.  We  have  not  only  this  prophecy  that 
the  Messiah  should  be  in  some  mysterious  way  The 
mighty  God,  The  everlasting  Father,  The  Prince  of 
Peace,  but  we  have  literally  hundreds  of  other  pre- 
dictions, minute  and  specific,  relating  to  nations,  to 
countries  and  to  individuals;  and  these  predictions 
invariably  have  been  literally  and  precisely  fulfilled. 

The  prophets  foretold  the  place  of  the  Messiah's 
birth  and  no  one  ever  questioned  that  Jesus  was  born 
in  Bethlehem.  They  foretold  the  family  in  which  He 
should  be  born,  the  family  of  David,  and  no  one  ever 
disputed  that  He  was  born  in  the  family  of  David. 
They  foretold  the  tribe  of  which  He  should  come,  the 
tribe  of  Judah,  and  no  one  ever  denied  that  Jesus 
came  from  the  tribe  of  Judah.  If  in  the  life-time  of 
Jesus  Christ,  or  in  the  years  of  the  first  proclamation 
of  the  gospel,  while  the  records  were  still  in  existence, 
the  Jews  had  shown  that  Jesus  was  not  born  in  Beth- 
lehem, that  He  was  not  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  and 
not  of  the  family  of  David,  every  disciple  would 
instantly  have  forsaken  Him.  They  were  not  able  to 
do  it;  they  never  disputed  it  —  never. 

Of  the  many  prophetic  details  concerning  Jesus,  I 
have  called  attention  to  three  particulars  which  were 
literally  fulfilled,  and  therefore  reason  compels  us  to 
give  great  weight  to  the  prediction  concerning  His 


86  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

Deity.  It*  a  witness  has  always  testified  truthfully, 
the  presumption  is  that  all  of  his  testimony  is  true. 
A  third  incontestable  proposition  is,  that  Jesus  Him- 
self  claimed  to  be  God  manifest  in  the  flesh.  Read 
the  following  passages  upon  that  point: 

"Your  father  Abraham  rejoiced  to  see  my  day:  and  he  saw 
it,  and  was  glad. 

Then  said  the  Jews  unto  him,  Thou  art  not  yet  fifty  years 
old,  and  hast  thou  seen  Abraham? 

Jesus  said  unto  them,  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  Be- 
fore Abraham  was,  I  am. 

Then  they  took  up  stones  to  cast  at  him:  but  Jesus  hid 
himself,  and  went  out  of  the  temple,  going  through  the 
midst  of  them,  and  so  passed  by."  —  John  8:56-59 

There  then,  was  the  distinct  assertion  upon  the  part 
of  Jesus  Himself  that  He  existed  before  Abraham, 
and  that  He  was  the  Jehovah  of  the  Old  Testament. 

'While  the  Pharisees  were  gathered  together,  Jesus  asked 
them, 

Saying,  What  think  ye  of  Christ?  whose  son  is  he?  They 
say  unto  him,  The  son  of  David. 

He  saith  unto  them,  How  then  doth  David  in  spirit  call 
him  Lord,"  —  Matthew  22:41-43 

Another  assertion  of  His  Deity: 

"Jesus  saith  unto  him,  I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the 
life:  no  man  cometh  unto  the  Father,  but  by  me. 
If  ye  had  known  me,  ye  should  have  known  my  Father 
also:  and  from  henceforth  ye  know  him,  and  have  seen 
him. 

Philip  saith  unto  him,  Lord,  shew  us  the  Father,  and  it 
sufneeth  us. 

Jesus  saith  unto  him,  Have  I  been  so  long  time  with  you, 
and  yet  hast  thou  not  known  me,  Philip?  he  that  hath  seen 
me  hath  seen  the  Father;"  —  John  14:6-9 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  37 

You  will  remember  that  not  once,  but  many  times, 
this  humblest  of  men,  this  meekest  of  men  received 
the  worship  of  His  fellow  men,  an  act  of  unspeakable 
blasphemy,  a  shocking  violation  of  the  First  Com- 
mandment, did  Jesus  not  know  Himself  to  be  divine. 
We  have  a  marked  instance  of  that  in  the  twentieth 
chapter  of  John : 

"And  after  eight  days  again  his  disciples  were  within,  and 
Thomas  with  them:  then  came  Jesus,  the  doors  being  shut, 
and  stood  in  the  midst,  and  said,  Peace  be  unto  you. 
Then  saith  he  to  Thomas,  Reach  hither  thy  finger,  and 
behold  my  hands;  and  reach  hither  thy  hand,  and  thrust 
it  into  my  side:  and  be  not  faithless,  but  believing. 
And  Thomas  answered  and  said  unto  him,  My  Lord  and 
my  God."  —  John  20:26-28 

Here  let  me  anticipate  an  objection.  You  are  say- 
ing that  this  is  what  Jesus  says  of  Himself.  Very 
true;  but  it  shuts  a  candid  investigator  up  to  one 
of  two  alternatives.  Either  Jesus  was  the  Son  of  God 
or  He,  the  only  sinless  Being  of  whom  any  record  has 
come  down  to  man,  was  a  conscious  impostor,  a 
blasphemous  wretch,  or  he  was  a  deluded  enthusiast, 
one  or  the  other.  It  does  not  matter  which  of  these 
latter  alternatives  you  take,  the  position  is  abhorrent 
to  reason.  That  a  sinless  Being  would  consciously, 
deliberately  commit  the  most  flagrant  of  all  sins  in 
the  violation  of  the  First  Commandment, 

"Thou  shalt  have  none  other  gods  before  me" 

—  Deuteronomy  5:7 

could   be    explained   only   on    the   ground    of   in- 
sanity. 


( »4 


S8  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

But  the  whole  record  of  Jesus'  life  impresses  a 
candid  observer  with  His  sanity,  His  strength  of 
mind.  His  perfect  wisdom  and  self-poise;  and  the 
effect  of  faith  in  Him  as  divine  has  ever  been  to  purify 
the  character  and  lift  it  up  and  sanctify  it.  On  the 
other  hand,  were  Jesus  a  weak  religious  enthusiast, 
you  have  to  account  for  the  undeniable  fact  that  a 
sel  f-deceived  fanatic  was  the  author  of  the  only  per- 
fectly pure  religion  which  when  applied  to  sinful 
lives  has  demonstrated  its  power  to  transform  them 
into  holiness. 

By  either  alternative,  we  are  shut  up  to  a  greater 
inconsistency  and  to  a  greater  demand  upon  our 
credulity  than  to  receive  as  true  the  simple  and 
sublime  statement  of  the  Word  of  God;  that  for  the 
purpose  of  making  Himself  known  to  a  race  which 
had  gone  astray  from  Him,  He  in  His  infinite  love 
and  pity  clothed  Himself  with  flesh  and  lived  among 
men  that  they  might  know  Him,  come  to  Him,  trust 
Him  and  love  Him. 

Remember,  too,  that  other  all-compelling  motive  to 
incarnation  which  grows  out  of  our  guilt.  The  most 
evidently  God-like  thing  in  all  Scripture  is  the  record 
of  self-sacrifice  of  Jehovah  for  the  sins  of  His  crea- 
tures. Only  a  sinless  one  could  make  that  sacrifice; 
only  Deity  could  gather  all  sins  into  one  expiatory 
act;  only  in  the  flesh  could  Deity  become  a  sacrifice. 

Well,  you  have  here  a  great  mystery,  and  if  the 
doctrine  is  true,  that  needs  must  be. 

"In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with 
God,  and  the  Word  was  God."  —  John  1:1 


WITH    DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  39 

There  is  one  mystery  —  God.  How  much  do  we 
know  about  God  after  all?  How  much  are  we,  under 
human  limitations,  capable  of  knowing  about  God? 

"The  Word  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us,"  —  John  1:14 

— another  mystery.  We  know  a  little  more  about  man 
than  we  do  about  God,  but  men  are  great  mysteries. 
Two  mysteries  —  the  mystery  of  God  and  the  mys- 
tery of  man,  and  these  brought  together  in  the  In- 
carnation. Indeed  it  would  be  a  difficult  religion  to 
believe  if  there  were  no  mystery  in  it.  That  there 
are  mysteries  in  Christianity  is  the  very  mark  of  God 
upon  it. 

We  have,  then,  the  fact  of  the  Deity  of  Jesus  Christ 
and  it  accounts  perfectly  for  all  the  phenomena  of 
His  life  and  His  character  and  of  the  influence  of  that 
life  and  character  upon  personal  experience  and  hu- 
man history.  No  other  theory  will  account  for  all 
those  phenomena.  Furthermore,  it  agrees  with  the 
predictions  of  the  prophets  and  the  testimony  of 
Christ  Himself.  Are  we  not,  by  these  very  processes 
of  reasoning,  shut  up  to  the  necessity  of  believing  that 
this  explanation  is  the  only  one  credible  to  sound  hu- 
man reason?  Philosophy  and  Scripture  agree  in  the 
consent  that  this  explanation  is  adequate ;  it  accounts 
for  all  the  facts  and  accounts  for  them  perfectly. 

There  remains  the  testimony,  upon  which  I  will 
not  dwell,  of  personal  experience.  Suffice  it  to  say, 
that  for  1900  years,  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as  a  divine 
Saviour  and  Lord  has  laid  hold  upon  the  most  de- 


40  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

graded  human  lives  and  lifted  them  up  into  purity. 
Faith  in  the  Drily  of  Jesus  Christ  has  transformed 
barbarous  into  civilized  nations.  It  has  established 
a  new  standard  of  right  and  wrong.  Even  those  who 
do  not  accept  the  personal  authority  of  the  Divine 
Jesus  know  that  that  human  personality  is  the  foun- 
tain head  of  every  blessing  of  light,  liberty  and  law 
under  which  they  live.  As  we  stand  before  that 
gentle  and  loving  and  mighty  Jesus,  shall  not  our 
hearts  confirm  with  trust  and  love  the  verdict  of  our 
reason,  which  compels  us  to  proclaim  the  Deity  of 
Jesus  Christ  to  be  the  essence  of  Christianity? 

"In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with 
God,  and  the  Word  was  God."  —  John  1:1 


THE   MOST   IMPORTANT 
QUESTION  EVER  ASKED 


THE   MOST   IMPORTANT 
QUESTION  EVER  ASKED 

"What  must  I  do  to  be  saved?"  —  Acts  16:30 

A  QUESTION  does  not  always  imply  a  doubt.  A 
child  wants  to  know,  and  asks  questions  about 
everything;  but  a  child  asks  because  it  believes  that 
it  is  possible  to  know.  So  we  can  ask  of  Scripture 
the  great  questions  that  we  must  ask,  if  we  are 
thoughtful  and  real.  And  we  should  ask  questions, 
not  because  we  doubt,  but  because  we  desire  to  know; 
because  we  believe  that  if  God  has  given  a  revelation 
to  man,  He  has  answered  in  that  revelation  every 
reasonable  question  of  the  human  soul,  not  every 
idle  and  curious  question  that  might  be  asked,  but 
every  question  that  touches  the  real  things  of  human 
destiny.  Let  us  look  at  the  questions  that  the  jailer 
asked  at  midnight  in  the  Philippian  jail. 

"What  must  I  do  to  be  saved?"  —  Acts  16:30 

Many  think  there  is  an  antecedent  question:  "Do 
I  need  to  be  saved?"  Is  there  any  necessity  such  as 
is  supposed  in  the  question?  I  shall  not  insult  the 
intelligence  of  any  thoughtful  person  by  seeking  to 

43 


H  IN    MANY   PULPITS 

prove  what  is  already  true  to  every  honest  soul  — 
namely,  the  need  of  salvation.  You  and  I  know  that 
in  ourselves  and  apart  from  something  that  God  may 
do  for  us,  we  are  unfit  for  a  holy  heaven,  and  I  should 
Feel  that  I  were  trilling  with  you  if  I  went  into  any 
elaborate  proof  concerning  the  need,  that  lies  in  every 
one  of  us,  of  a  salvation.  Let  me  simple  re-state  the 
grounds  upon  which  I  make  this  statement.  First 
of  all,  we  have  all  done,  in  thought  and  act,  what  a 
holy  God  can  not  approve.  I  do  not  stop  to  prove 
that.  And  secondly,  we  all  feel  within  ourselves  the 
possibilities  of  evil  beyond  anything  we  have  ever 
done,  therefore  there  is  something  in  us  that  needs  to 
be  saved. 

When  the  son  in  the  parable  came  to  himself  he 
gave  a  very  good  proof  that  he  had  indeed  come  to 
himself.    He  said, 

"I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  father,  and  will  say  unto  him, 
Father,  I  have  sinned  against  heaven,  and  before  thee," 

—  Luke  15:18 

That  is  the  first  evidence  of  the  sinner  coming  to 
himself.  So  long  as  the  son  in  the  far  country  may 
have  thought,  "I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  father  and 
say,  'Father,  I  have  got  into  a  bad  environment;  I 
was  weak  and  they  led  me  astray;  and  sin  looked 
very  beautiful  and  attractive,  and  you  never  told  me 
much  about  it,  and  so  I  am  in  this  plight,'  "  he  has 
not  come  to  himself.  When  a  sinner  comes  to  him- 
self, he  says,  "Father,  I  have  sinned."  Never  mind 
about  the  influences,  never  mind  about  the  environ- 


WITH   DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  45 

merit  —  "I  have  sinned."  This  question  of  salva- 
tion, then,  must  be  a  personal  and  not  an  abstract 
question. 

You  know  a  great  many  intelligent  people,  think- 
ing people,  whose  minds  are  alive  and  alert,  lay  hold 
upon  problems  and  think  about  them,  interested  in 
the  abstract  questions  that  have  to  do  with  human 
responsibility.  But  this  is  not  an  abstract  question. 
It  is  not  what  the  man  across  the  road  must  do  to  be 
saved,  but  what  must  I  do  to  be  saved.  Furthermore, 
the  question  is  specific: 

"What  must  I  do  to  be  saved?"  —  Acts  16:30 

If  there  is  something  the  questioner  would  seem  to 
ask  that  I  must  do,  oh,  tell  me  in  no  mistakable  words 
what  that  something  is.  Be  ambiguous  about  any- 
thing else,  but  not  about  this,  for  there  is  too  much 
at  stake.  Don't  darken  counsel  with  words;  don't 
fill  the  air  with  controversy  about  that.  What  is  it 
I  must  do? 

There  are  many  answers.  Every  religion  that  has 
ever  appeared  among  men  is  an  attempt  to  answer 
that  question,  from  the  crudest  form  of  fetichism  to 
the  adequate  and  light-filled  answer  of  Christianity. 
The  savage  who  carves  in  a  gnarled  piece  of  wood 
an  image  uglier  than  himself  and  falls  prostrate  be- 
fore it,  is  trying  to  find  an  answer  to  that  word 
"What?"  I  ask  the  Hindoo  —  and  it  is  very  fashion- 
able now  to  find  a  great  deal  of  beauty  in  Hindooism. 
No  one,  I  believe,  finds  any  beauty  in  the  practical 


k;  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

outworking  of  Hindooism  —  oh,  no,  bless  you;  it  is 
when  in  a  Christian  land  and  in  the  light  of  Christian 
civilization,  and  surrounded  by  all  the  comforts  that 
have  come  to  us  from  the  influences  of  Christ,  that 
nun  take  the  Hindoo  books  and  find  in  them  here  and 
there  a  little  maxim  that  they  say  is  very  beautiful 
—  "just  as  beautiful  as  anything  in  the  Bible"  — 
but  out  there,  where  Hindooism  is  believed  and  lived, 
we  do  not  find  any  pleasant  fruits  from  it.  But  it 
tries  to  answer  my  question.  I  go  to  some  filthy  man 
who  is  pointed  out  to  be  as  holy  as  men  ever  become, 
and  say,  "What  must  I  do  to  be  saved?"  "Why," 
says  he,  "roll  yourself  on  the  ground  nine  hundred 
miles  to  a  certain  shrine."  "Will  that  save  me?" 
"Oh,  no,  not  exactly  save  you,"  he  answers,  "but  it 
may  propitiate  the  gods,  and  the  next  time  you  are 
born  you  may  not  be  born  a  monkey  or  a  snake." 
Do  I  want  that?    That  is  not  saving  me. 

But  there  is  a  very  much  easier  answer  ready  for 
me.  I  go  to  some  generalizer  and  he  says,  "Why,  the 
matter  is  perfectly  simple  —  just  be  good."  And  then 
he  has  started  more  questions  than  he  has  settled. 
I  ask  him  what  he  means  by  being  good,  and  compar- 
ing his  standard  of  goodness  with  that  of  the  holy 
Being  whom  I  have  to  meet  some  time,  I  find  that 
the  moralizer's  standard  of  goodness  is  not  high 
enough;  it  won't  answer.  And  then,  too,  I  have  to 
say  to  him,  "But,  sir,  I  have  a  record;  I  have  not  been 
good.  What  am  I  going  to  do  about  that?"  Oh,  my 
friends,  that  was  an  awful  word  of  Pilate's  when  they 
came  to  him  and  wanted  him  to  change  the  writing 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  47 

over  the  cross.     He  said,  impatiently,  words  that 
held  a  weight  of  meaning  he  little  thought  of  then: 

"What  I  have  written,  I  have  written."  —  John  ig:22 

Oh,  yes,  friends,  what  you  have  written,  you  have 
written;  and  what  I  have  written,  I  have  written.  It 
is  rather  late  in  the  day  to  try  to  save  me  by  telling 
me  to  be  good  now.  But  I  must  have  an  answer.  I 
am  not  saved  and  I  need  saving.  And  I  turn  to  the 
Book  of  God  and  there  I  read  an  answer  that  seems 
to  me  so  God-like  that  it  wins  my  confidence  at  once. 
It  seems  adequate;  it  seems  to  cover  the  ground.  I 
can  find  no  flaw  in  it  and  it  is  beautifully  simple. 
What  is  it?  Let  me  take  an  instance.  A  pagan, 
whose  office  was  that  of  jailer  in  the  town  of  Philippi, 
had  in  his  custody  one,  the  apostle  Paul.  The  apostle 
had  been  beaten  with  rods  and  his  back  was  lacerated. 
For  companion,  he  had  one  Silas,  who  had  endured 
the  same  scourging.  These  men  were  brought  to  the 
jailer  to  be  kept  securely  till  the  morning,  and  so  he 
put  them  in  an  inner  dungeon.  And  these  two  men 
sang  in  the  night;  and  they  had  a  God,  and  things  be- 
gan to  happen,  and  they  happened  in  such  ways  that 
the  jailer  began  to  see  that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  a 
God  who  could  shake  the  earth  and  fling  wide  prison 
doors,  and  he  came  and  fell  down  in  all  his  sins  and 
pagan  blindness  and  ignorance,  and  said, 

"Sirs,  what  must  I  do  to  be  saved?"  —  Acts  16:30 

And  from  these  men  there  came  the  answer  which 
I  give  to  you: 


18  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

"Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  b" 
saved."  —  Acts  io:;i 

There  is  not  any  other  answer. 

"For  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  he  gave  his  only  be- 
gotten Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not 
perish,  but  have  everlasting  life."  —  John  3:16 

"Whosoever"  —  no  matter  what  his  place  might  be 
in  the  sliding  scale  of  human  guilt,  away  down  at  the 
bottom,  or  pretty  well  up  at  the  top.  The  drunkard 
down  here,  and  the  thief  and  the  harlot,  and  the 
moralizer  up  there  —  never  mind  —  "whosoever." 
Well,  that  seems  to  me  like  God. 

"Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  —  Acts  16:31 

Now  that  is  a  reasonable  answer.  And  what  is  belief? 
It  is  trust,  that  kind  of  trust  that  commits  the  whole 
case  to  another.  Thousands  are  trusting  Christ  now. 
Many  of  them  you  know  and  they  are  the  best  people 
you  know.  It  is  reasonable,  therefore,  to  trust  One 
who  has  never  been  false  to  the  trust  reposed  in  Him, 
and  it  is  reasonable  because  He  can  not,  even  with 
His  divine  power,  save  those  who  will  not  trust  Him. 

"In  whom  we  trust  that  he  will  yet  deliver  us;  " 

—  //  Corinthians  1:10 

"For  as  the  sufferings  of  Christ  abound  in  us,  so  our  conso- 
lation also  aboundeth  by  Christ."  —  //  Corinthians  1:5 


MAN,   A   THREE-FOLD   BEING 


MAN,  A   THREE-FOLD   BEING 

"And  I  pray  God  your  whole  spirit  and  soul  and  body  be 
preserved  blameless  unto  the  coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ."  —  /  Thessalonians  5:23 

WE  live  in  the  psychological  age.  Man,  weary- 
ing at  last  of  barren  philosophies,  each  of 
which  but  devours  the  others,  has  turned  away  from 
the  always  futile  attempt  to  harmonize  the  facts  of 
being  with  the  facts  of  the  universe,  and  is  trying  to 
find  out  what  manner  of  creature  he  is.  The  philoso- 
phies failed  because  they  left  God  out.  Science  will 
fail  because  it  leaves  out  the  supernatural,  and  the 
new  science  of  psychology  is  in  utter  confusion  be- 
cause it  leaves  out  the  Biblical  account  of  man. 

In  truth  the  Bible  contains  a  perfect  philosophy 
and  a  no  less  perfect  psychology.  What  is  man? 
The  new  psychology  answers,  "Body  and  two  kinds 
of  mind,  conscious  and  subconscious."  Theology 
answers,  "Body  and  soul,  or  spirit,"  making  soul  and 
spirit  to  be  "in  all  essential  respects  identical,"  as 
a  great  Protestant  theologian  says.  But  the  Bible 
answers  that  man  is  spirit,  soul  and  body;  and  the 
Bible  will  by  no  means  agree  that  spirit  and  soul  are 
in  any  essential  respect  identical.     The  Bible  calls 

51 


IN  MANY  PULPITS 

these  invisible  parts  of  man  by  different  names, 
psyche  or  soul,  pneuma  or  spirit,  and  the  Bible  pierces 

"even  to  the  dividing  asunder  of  soul  and  spirit." 

—  Hebrews  4:12 

Briefly,  the  Scriptures  attribute  to  the  soul  the 
emotions,  affections,  desires,  appetites  and  the  will  of 
man.  To  the  spirit,  —  the  capacity  to  know,  to 
reason,  to  remember.  And  these  are  so  connected 
with  the  body  that  they  are  never  to  be  permanently 
separated.  Man  may  and  does  exist  out  of  the  body, 
—  but  the  divine  purpose  is  to  unite  again  in  resurrec- 
tion all  human  souls  and  spirits  and  their  mortal 
bodies.  The  Christian  at  the  resurrection  receives 
his  body  purified  from  all  that  makes  it  often  a  bur- 
den and  always  a  care. 

"It  is  sown  in  corruption;  it  is  raised  in  incorruption: 
It  is  sown  in  dishonour;  it  is  raised  in  glory:  it  is  sown 
in  weakness;  it  is  raised  in  power: 

It  is  sown  a  natural  body;  it  is  raised  a  spiritual  body." 

—  /  Corinthians  15:42-44 

What  must  be  grasped  here  is  the  preservation  of 
identity.  "It  is  sown  —  it  is  raised."  These  bodies 
of  ours  are  an  integral  part  of  our  deathless  per- 
sonality —  spirit,  soul  and  body  —  intellectual,  af- 
fectional,  physical.  Such  is  man,  a  tri-personality 
as  made  in  the  image  of  Him  who  is  triune.  Through 
the  body  man  has  world-consciousness;  through  the 
soul  self-consciousness;  through  the  spirit,  God-con- 
sciousness.    Proverbs  calls  the  human  spirit 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  53 

"the  candle  of  the  Lord,"  —  Proverbs  20:27 

because  capable  of  being  lighted  from  the  touch  of 
the  divine  intelligence. 

It  follows  that  man  may  habitually  live  in  either 
of  these  parts  of  his  tri-personality,  or  in  two,  or  in 
all  of  them.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  most  obvious  fact 
of  human  existence  that  the  enormous  majority  of 
men  and  women  live  in  and  for  the  physical  part  of 
their  being.  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  pointed  to  this  fact.  He  found  the  face  of 
humanity  covered  with  the  mask  of  anxiety,  of  care, 
of  apprehension.  Over  the  face  that  God  meant  to 
be  open,  serene,  beautiful,  the  centuries  had  written 
the  wrinkles  of  care,  of  pre-occupation,  of  anxiety. 
And  all  about  what?  Food  and  raiment!  And  these 
things,  in  his  rebuke,  stand  for  the  life  of  the  body, 
the  life  of  the  senses. 

To  live,  to  eat  and  to  drink,  to  adorn  the  body 
and  wrap  the  physical  life  in  luxury  —  this  He  found 
both  base  and  foolish.  It  was  and  is  to  lose  the  true 
perspective,  to  hopelessly  confuse  values.  At  the 
end  of  all  our  superficial  reasoning  and  futile  excuse 
it  remains  that  to  live  for  the  senses  is  to  descend 
in  the  scale  of  being.  All  civilizations  have  perished 
because  wealth  and  power  gave  scope  to  the  physi- 
cal pleasures  of  man. 

Rome  begins  with  the  two  babes  suckled  by  a  wolf, 
and  ends  in  imperial  orgies  where  boundless  wealth 
and  power  have  laid  the  whole  world  under  contri- 


54  IN   MANY  PULPITS 

1  nit  ion  to  sensual  pleasure.  The  product  of  the  life 
of  the  senses  is  not  a  man,  but  an  animal.  Small 
wonder  that  men,  minded  to  do  nobler  things,  have 
gone  to  the  other  extreme,  finding  in  the  body  the 
real  enemy  of  the  soul,  and  in  hard  asceticism 
the  true  philosophy  of  life.  Over  against  the 
palace  they  have  put  the  cell  of  the  anchorite;  a 
crust  against  the  banquet;  the  hair  shirt  for  the 
silken  robe;  the  self-inflicted  tortures  of  the  flagel- 
lants for  pampered  passion. 

Between  stoicism  and  epicureanism  stands  Christ 
accepting  neither,  rejecting  both.  As  against  the 
stoics,  he  stands  for  development,  not  repression. 
As  against  the  epicureans,  he  stands  for  the  rule  of 
the  spirit  of  man  over  his  body,  instead  of  the  rule 
of  the  body  of  man  over  the  spirit.  Jesus  Christ's 
first  ministry  was  to  the  bodies  of  men.  Disease,  a 
physical  consequence  of  sin  in  the  world,  was  banished 
by  His  healing  touch  and  word.  He  twice  fed  mul- 
titudes by  His  creative  power,  and  He  turned  water 
into  wine  for  the  wedding  feast.  He  did  not  find 
evil  in  food  and  raiment,  but  only  in  making  them 
the  chief  concern  of  life.  After  His  resurrection 
His  own  hands,  so  recently  torn  with  cruel  spikes, 
prepared  breakfast  for  His  hungry  disciples. 

At  the  opposite  extreme,  some  men  and  a  few 
women  live  the  life  of  the  intellect.  To  acquire 
knowledge,  to  stimulate  the  creative  forces  of  the 
spirit,  to  rule  or  rise  by  superior  acumen  and  the 
play  of  trained  faculties  —  these  give  the  true  use 
of  life,  as  they  think.     To  this  end  everything  in 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  55 

life  is  subordinated.  They  live  in  disregard  or  de- 
fiance of  every  legitimate  demand  of  the  senses,  and 
rule  their  emotions  with  relentless  authority.  The 
product  is  not  a  man,  but  a  thinking  machine.  In 
religion  they  are  ecclesiastics  or  theologians  —  never 
Christians. 

Another  great  company  of  men  and  women  live 
the  life  of  the  emotions.  They  are  swayed  by  their 
likes  and  dislikes,  are  unduly  cast  down  or  unduly 
exalted.  Blown  about  by  every  wind  of  doctrine, 
they  are  unstable  as  water.  Capable  of  great  things 
in  their  best  moments,  they  are  incapable  of  any- 
thing at  their  worst.    They  are  not  men,  but  children. 

What,  now,  is  the  Christian  doctrine?  The  answer 
will  show  that  in  Christ,  His  work  and  teaching,  will 
be  found  the  only  true  solution  of  the  problem  of 
right  living  for  the  three-fold  being  —  man.  And 
the  first  factor  of  the  problem  is  the  fact  that  in 
neither  spirit,  soul  nor  body  is  man  in  his  normal 
state.  His  intellect  is  perverted  by  pride  and  am- 
bition. 

"Ye  shall  be  as  gods,  knowing"  —  Genesis  3:5 

was  Satan's  first  appeal  to  the  spirit  of  man.  By  that 
sin  he  fell. 

"I  will  ascend  into  heaven,  I  will  exalt  my  throne  above 
the  stars  of  God:"  —  Isaiah  14:13 

was  Satan's  impious  boast  while  yet  the 

"son  of  the  morning!"  —  Isaiah  14:12 


66  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

The  spirit  of  man  by  which  God,  who  is  a  spirit, 
seeks  entrance  into  the  sphere  of  man's  life,  is  barred 
to  him  by  intellectual  arrogance  and  pride. 

"The  world  by  wisdom  knew  not  God" — /  Corinthians  1:21 

is  the  divine  verdict  upon  the  final  result  of  the  in- 
tellectual activity  of  man. 

"Professing  themselves  to  be  wise,  they  became  fools," 

—  Romans  1:22 

Christ  found  the  intellect  of  man  sunken  in  the  sin 
of  pride. 

The  soul  of  man,  the  sphere  of  his  affections,  emo- 
tions and  will,  was  and  is,  if  possible,  in  worse  case. 
Man,  through  his  soul,  ought  to  love  God  supremely. 
Instead,  he  loves  self,  loves  sin.  His  will  ought  to 
be  as  sensitive  to  the  movement  of  the  divine  will 
as  the  magnetic  needle  is  to  the  magnetic  current. 
Instead,  his  will  is  set  to  get  his  own  way,  to  achieve 
the  things  which  he  desires.  This  is  why  so  much  is 
said  in  Scripture  about  the  soul  of  man.  It  is 
through  loving  the  wrong  things  that  man  has  gone 
wrong. 

"As  he  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he:"  —  Proverbs  23:7 

In  the  last  analysis  the  desires  rule  the  man.  When 
Christ  takes  captive  the  heart,  he  is  sure  of  his  ulti- 
mate victory  over  the  spirit  and  the  body.  And  the 
body  of  man  is  what  sin  has  made  it.  The  home 
and  servant  of  the  spirit  and  the  soul,  it  has  obeyed 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  57 

sin  in  the  lusts  thereof.  Doomed  to  die,  though  the 
spirit  and  the  soul  can  not,  the  body  is  filled  with 
the  seeds  of  disease,  the  heritage  of  weakness,  suffer- 
ing and  decay. 

Jesus  Christ  begins  by  making  this  problem  of 
man's  degradation  of  spirit,  soul  and  body  through 
sin,  His  own  especial  and  exclusive  problem.  The 
only  help  He  has  from  man  in  redeeming  man  is 
that  man's  intellect  devises  the  cross,  man's  perverted 
soul  hates  goodness  so  much  that  it  dooms  incarnate 
goodness  to  the  death  of  the  cross,  and  man's  body 
furnishes  the  hands  which  nail  Him  to  the  cross. 
All  else  Christ  does.  The  blood  which  flows  from  the 
wounds  inflicted  by  man  atones  for  all  man's  sin, 
and  purchases  his  complete  redemption  —  spirit,  soul 
and  body. 

When  this  redemption  is  accepted  by  the  indi- 
vidual, the  processes  begin  which  culminate  in  holi- 
ness. And  holiness  is  simply  "wholeness"  —  the 
restoration  of  perfect  symmetry  to  the  three-fold  be- 
ing of  man.  And  the  model  and  exemplar  of  the  holy, 
or  "whole,"  man  is  Jesus  Christ.  In  Him  was  a 
human  spirit  perfectly  interpenetrated  by,  and  per- 
fectly responsive  to,  the  divine  Spirit.  The  result 
was  the  most  marvelous  intellectual  manifestation  in 
human  history. 

"Never  man  spake  like  this  man."  —  John  7:46 

Transparently  simple,  and  utterly  devoid  of  literary 
artifice,  His  words  have  transformed  human  stand- 
ards, and  created  a  new  and  wonderful  literature. 


58  IN    MANY   PULPITS 

In  Him  was  an  emotional  and  volitional  life  per- 
fectly normal  and  perfectly  beautiful.  He  was  the 
exacl  opposite  of  the  stoical  ideal.  Perhaps  the  best 
vision  o\  the  whole  heart  life  and  outward  life  of 
Christ  may  be  gained  by  contrast  —  He  was  the  pre- 
cise antithesis  of  a  Puritan.  All  that  a  Puritan  was, 
except  reverence  and  morality,  He  was  not.  All  that 
a  Puritan  was  not,  He  was. 

He  entered  humanity  as  a  pure  stream  enters  a 
foul  pool,  cleansing  it,  but  also  renewing  it.  He  put 
honor  upon  all  the  primal  instincts  and  passions  of 
man,  while  insisting  that  their  only  true  development 
lay  along  the  lines  of  purity  and  holiness.  And  His 
redemption  brings  the  whole  being  into  balanced 
symmetry  and  beauty. 


THE   UNRECOGNIZED   CHRIST 


THE   UNRECOGNIZED   CHRIST 

"He  was  in  the  world,  and  the  world  was  made  by  him,  and 
the  world  knew  him  not."  —  John  1:10 

THAT  was  nothing  new.  The  world  has  never 
known  its  prophets,  its  seers,  the  men  by  whom 
its  life  has  been  guided,  endowed,  enriched.  The 
unrecognized  Christ  was  only  a  kind  of  final  and 
unanswerable  proof  of  the  invincible  grossness,  stu- 
pidity and  unspirituality  of  that  great  aggregation  of 
humans  which  we  call  the  world.  What  moves  us  to 
a  deeper  wonder  is  that  Christ,  after  nearly  2,000 
years,  during  which  time  He  has  reconstructed 
society,  imposed  upon  even  the  world  itself  an  abso- 
lutely new  ethical  standard  and  created  a  new  type 
of  character,  should  still  be  the  unrecognized  Christ. 
The  sensation  of  one  exhibition  at  the  Royal  Acad- 
emy in  London  was  Goethe's  picture  bearing  no  name, 
but  only  the  motto, 

"Is  it  nothing  to  you,  all  ye  that  pass  by?' 

—  Lamentations  1:12 

The  picture,  now  well  known  through  reproductions, 
represents  the  altar  which  Paul  found  at  Athens  with 
the  inscription,  Votum  Deo  Ignoto,  "To  the  unknown 

61 


62  IN    MAW    PULPITS 

God";  only  now  Christ,  wearing  the  crown  of  thorns 
and  piteously  bowed  in  prayer,  is  bound  to  that  altar. 
rhe  altar  stands  in  the  midst  of  the  passing  throng 
—  tin1  scientist  with  his  test  tube,  the  man  of  the 
turf  with  his  whip  and  racing  list,  the  society  beauty, 
tempting  in  her  rich  robes,  the  vacuous-faced  club- 
man, tin1  nrwsboy  shouting  his  papers,  the  laborer 
with  his  pick,  the  ecclesiastic  in  his  vestments,  the 
churchman  and  the  dissenter  in  heated  discussion,  the 
officer  in  smart  uniform,  and  all  in  absolute  uncon- 
sciousness of  the  august  and  pathetic  figure  bound  to 
the  altar  with  its  agnostic  inscription,  "Votum  Deo 
Ignoto." 

It  is  a  picture  of  an  awful  fact.    Christ  is  in  the 
world,  — 


"and  the  world  was  made  by  him,  and  the  world  knew  him 
not."  —  John  i :io 


To  assert  the  presence  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  world 
of  today  is  not  to  appeal  to  faith.  It  is  an  appeal 
to  observation.  It  is  an  appeal  to  human  history 
for  the  last  twenty  centuries.  Anno  Domini  is  not 
an  arbitrary  date-point  fixed  by  scientific  consent 
for  convenience.  Demonstrably  the  world,  in  the 
year  one  of  this  era,  began  to  be  a  different  world. 
Modern  society,  in  the  large  sense  of  that  word,  is 
not  an  evolution  out  of  B.  C.  When  Christ  came  the 
old  civilizations  were  worn  out.  Liberty  was  dead  in 
Rome,  in  Athens.  The  gods  were  dead.  There  may 
well  have  been  more  than  fancy  in  the  legend  men- 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  63 

tioned  by  Plutarch  that  at  the  hour  of  our  Saviour's 
agony  rowers  on  the  sea  heard  a  cry,  "Great  Pan  is 
dead,"  and  that  the  oracles  ceased. 

And  that  dismal  cry  rose  slowly 

And  sank  slowly  through  the  air, 
Full  of  spirit's  melancholy 

And  eternity's  despair! 
And  they  heard  the  words  it  said  — 
Pan  is  dead  —  Great  Pan  is  dead  — 
Pan,  Pan  is  dead. 

Elizabeth  B.  Browning 

Of  a  truth  the  oracles  had  ceased.  In  Rome,  the 
augurs  were  laughing  in  each  other's  faces.  The 
philosophers,  those  poor  human  attempts  to  solve  the 
mystery  of  life,  were  spent  forces.  Pontius  Pilate 
did  not  wait  for  an  answer  to  his  contemptuous 
question, 

"What   is   truth?"  —  John    18:38 

The  quest  of  truth,  even,  was  given  up,  and  that  is 
the  last  sign  of  despair. 

The  world  of  power  for  which  Rome  stood,  and 
the  world  of  culture  for  which  Greece  stood,  were 
alike  sunken  in  immeasurable  corruption.  Nor  these 
only.  Judaism,  the  testing  of  man  not  by  power 
nor  by  philosophy,  but  under  the  revealed  will  of 
God,  had  perished  in  formalism,  as  heathen  culture 
had  perished  in  sensualism.  Jesus  Christ  called 
Judaism  a 

"whited  sepulchre."  —  Matthew  23:27 
The  strict  religionists  of  Palestine  were  the  wall  in 


<;t  IN    MANY    ITLPITS 

the  way  of  the  gospel.  It  was  revealed  religion, 
frozen  into  a  heartless  form,  that  demanded  the  cruci- 
fixion of  Christ.  The  world  was  hopeless.  Every 
avenue  had  been  tried.  There  was  no  thoroughfare. 
Power  had  failed,  culture  had  failed,  religion  as  a 
system  of  human  obedience  had  failed.  There  was 
another  word,  but  the  world  had  filled  it  with  false 
and  base  meanings.  It  was  the  word  love.  There 
was  a  new  center,  but  the  world  had  missed  it.  It 
was  God.  The  old  dead  world  had  confused  love 
with  lust,  God  with  matter.  Worst  of  all,  perhaps, 
the  old  dead  world  had  no  certain  word  about  the 
hereafter. 

Then  Jesus  Christ  came  and  with  Him  the  forces 
which  have  remade  and  are  remaking  the  world.  He 
enthroned  a  personal  God  at  the  center  and  made  all 
life  accountable  to  Him.  He  did  not  ask  men  to 
elect  Jehovah  God,  but  revealed  Him  as  from  ever- 
lasting to  everlasting  God,  whether  men  liked  to 
have  it  so  or  not.  He  made  men  see  that  they  were 
in  God's  universe,  and  that  they  could  not  get  out 
—  that  some  time,  somewhere,  they  must  give  an 
account  of  themselves  to  God.  And  wherever  that 
conviction  comes,  the  conviction  of  sin  leaps  into 
awful  life.  If  God  is,  then  I  am  undone.  Against 
that  conclusion  all  argumentation  is  mere  trifling, 
unworthy  a  rational  being.  And,  with  that  clew,  the 
riddle  of  the  world,  as  it  is,  begins  to  be  read.  It  is 
perceived  that  the  real  malady  is  sin.  The  world  is 
not  right  with  God. 

Jesus  Christ  gives  the  eternal  God  a  name.    His 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  65 

name  is  Love.  He  has  another  name  —  Light.  Light 
reveals  that  Love  may  heal.  In  the  cross  Christ 
fixes  the  measure  of  divine  love. 

"For  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  he  gave  his  only  begotten 
Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not  perish, 
but  have  everlasting  life."  —  John  3:16 

A  perishing  world  need  not  perish;  a  dying  world 
may  have  everlasting  life.  That  opens  the  limitless 
future.  Eternity  begins  to  take  on  new  meanings. 
Jesus  Christ  brought  life  and  immortality  to  light 
through  the  gospel.  Man  is  not  the  creature  of  a 
day;  man  is  not  a  brother  to  the  beasts.  Life  has  a 
limitless  perspective,  and  clear  on  to  the  endless  end, 
God,  eternal  Love,  is  man's  father  and  friend,  if  man 
will  have  it  so. 

Atoning  for  man's  sin  by  the  blood  of  the  cross, 
coming  again  from  the  dead  in  eternal  triumph  over 
the  grave,  Jesus  Christ  begins  to  carry  the  salvation 
of  the  cross  into  all  the  world.  It  is  nothing  less 
than  the  remaking  of  the  world.  Note  the  means. 
He  begins  by  exalting  the  value  of  the  individual 
man.  It  is  the  fulfillment  of  that  old  cry  of  the 
prophet: 

"I  will  make  a  man  more  precious  than  fine  gold;  even  a 
man  than  the  golden  wedge  of  Ophir."  —  Isaiah  13:12 

The  old  dead  world  did  not  think  much  of  a  man. 
This  present  world  has  not  yet  come  to  anything 
like  the  divine  estimate  of  the  value  of  a  man.    Men 


66  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

themselves  hold  themselves  cheap,  selling  out  man- 
hood for  money  and  pleasure  or  ambition,  but  in  so 
far  as  the  individual  has  come  to  have  sacredness 
it  is  due  to  the  reconstruction  of  the  world  by  Jesus 
Christ.  Jesus  Christ  put  the  family,  not  the  State, 
at  the  foundation  of  all  social  order.  In  the  old  dead 
world  the  State  was  the  unit.  The  individual,  the 
family  were  subordinated  to  the  State.  Under  the 
new  ideal  human  relationships  came  instantly  to  have 
sacredness.  Home  came  to  have  a  new  meaning, 
wife  to  be  a  title  of  honor  above  which  there  is  no 
other.  The  child  became  in  its  trustfulness  and  sim- 
plicity the  model  of  the  heavenly  character,  and  under 
the  especial  protection  of  God,  the  object  of  tender 
care.  Jesus  gave  the  world  a  new  ideal  of  character 
in  the  beatitudes,  and  in  the  graces  of  the  Spirit:  love, 
joy,  peace,  long  suffering,  gentleness,  goodness,  faith, 
meekness  and  temperance.  And  for  the  realization 
of  those  graces  He  brought  within  the  reach  of  the 
simple  faith  of  the  simplest  child  of  Adam  a  wholly 
new  life-principle. 

Beyond  doubt  the  fact  that  by  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ,  through  the  new  birth,  man  becomes  possessed 
of  the  divine  nature  is  the  last  of  all  the  truths  of 
revelation  to  get  itself  believed.  Inveterately  we 
persist  in  thinking  of  Christ  as  bringing  to  man  a  new 
rule  of  life,  rather  than  a  new  life.  Without  this 
new  life,  imparted  through  the  new  birth,  the  new 
ethic  and  the  new  character  would  both  be  impos- 
sible of  realization.  And  man  received  heaven  as 
a  home  rather  than  as  a  court.    We  go  on,  I  know, 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  67 

thinking  of  heaven  as  a  kind  of  greater,  purer,  holier 
Olympus,  but  it  is  in  spite  of,  not  because  of  Christ's 
teaching.  To  him  heaven  is  the  home  of  the  family 
of  God.  The  children  of  that  family  were  all  born 
into  it  through  the  new  birth.  They  all  have  been 
made  partakers  of  their  heavenly  father's  nature. 
And  for  near  two  thousand  years  now  Jesus  Christ 
has  been  at  work  through  these  tremendous  agencies 
in  the  remaking  of  the  individual  and  of  humanity. 
And  yet  He  is  today,  as  He  was  2,000  years  ago  in 
Galilee  and  Judea,  the  Unrecognized  Christ. 

To  Him  is  due  the  glory  of  every  condition  which 
makes  life  endurable  for  humanity  today.  No  man 
would  willingly  live  and  rear  a  family  in  any  part  of 
the  earth,  however  beautiful  or  fertile,  where  Jesus 
Christ  is  unknown,  unhonored.  Every  distinctive 
blessing  of  life  is  His  gift.  He  made  the  wonderful 
universe  in  which  we  live ;  to  Him  we  owe  the  sanctity 
of  home,  the  honor  of  woman,  the  sacredness  of  the 
individual  as  against  the  tyranny  of  the  one  or  of 
the  many.  To  Him  is  due  the  new  ethic  which  is 
grounded  in  mercy,  and  from  which  has  sprung  every 
orphanage,  every  hospital,  every  institution  for  the 
ministry  of  mercy  to  the  unfortunate,  the  suffering, 
the  needy,  that  exists  on  earth  today.  And  yet  mil- 
lions who  live  by  Him,  without  the  least  of  whose 
mercies  life  would  lose  all  desirableness,  who  breathe 
the  air,  drink  the  water,  and  eat  the  substance  of  His 
creation,  go  on  in  lives  which  practically  ignore  Him. 

This  would  be  pathetic  enough,  were  this  all. 
Were  there  no  other  consequence  of  thus  ignoring 


68  IN    MANY   PULPITS 

the  Christ  from  whom  every  blessing  of  life  proceeds 
than  deterioration  of  character  such  as  follows  habit- 
ual ingratitude,  it  would  be  bad  enough.  When  it 
is  remembered  that  deliverance  from  the  power  of 
sin  and  the  guilt  of  sin,  that  membership  in  the 
family  of  God  and  eternal  felicity  turn  absolutely 
upon  the  personal  recognition  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the 
sense  of  a  joyous  personal  trust  and  adoring  worship, 
then  indeed  the  fact  of  the  Unrecognized  Christ  be- 
comes inexpressibly  tragic.    But 

"this  is  the  will  of  him  that  sent  me,  that  every  one  which 
seeth  the  Son,  and  believeth  on  him,  may  have  everlasting 
life:  and  I  will  raise  him  up  at  the  last  day." 

— John  6:40 


IS   LIFE  WORTH    LIVING? 


IS   LIFE  WORTH    LIVING? 

TODAY  we  are  to  ask  the  Bible  to  answer  the 
deep  question,  "What  is  the  true  meaning  of 
life?"  I  shall  not  insult  your  intelligence  by  one 
word  of  argument  as  to  the  importance  of  that  ques- 
tion. You  and  I  are  conscious  that  we  are  living. 
We  know  that  the  mysterious  and  wonderful  thing 
which  we  call  life  is  passing  rapidly  away.  What  a 
mystery  life  is  —  and  one  which  science  has  not  in 
the  least  helped  us  to  solve.  It  is  today  the  same 
inscrutable  mystery  it  was  centuries  ago.  That  its 
issues  are  tremendously  important,  we  know,  and  we 
ask  what  is  the  meaning,  the  true  meaning,  including, 
of  course,  the  true  purpose  and  object  of  life. 

As  a  truth  about  which  our  thought  may  crystal- 
lize, and  which  I  believe  opens  essentially  the  heart 
of  the  question,  I  have  chosen  for  a  text: 

"For  none  of  us  liveth  to  himself,  and  no  man  dieth  to  him- 
self."—  Romans  14:7 

In  other  words,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  isolate  our- 
selves from  humanity  and  from  God.  We  can  not 
do  it.    Now,  I  want  to  plead,  first  of  all,  in  consider- 

71 


n  IN  MANY  PULPITS 

tag  this  question  of  the  Erue  meaning  of  life,  for  a 
frank  recognition  of  this  fact.  No  life  has  found 
its  true  meaning  until  the  fact  is  frankly  recognized 
that  the  chief  value  of  that  life  is  due  to  the  invest- 
ment which  others  have  made  in  it.  Your  life  is 
valuable  to  you,  it  is  precious,  in  the  measure  in 
which  others  have  made  investments  in  it.  The  prob- 
lem that  is  before  us  is  not  a  problem  which  can  be 
considered  without  reference  to  past,  present  or 
future.  Think  of  the  tremendous  investment  that 
others  have  made  in  your  life  and  mine.  For  us, 
mothers  have  suffered  and  prayed.  For  us,  fathers 
have  toiled.  Teachers  have  patiently  invested  years 
of  effort  to  win  us  from  ignorance  into  knowledge. 
All  this  has  been  done  that  our  lives  might  have 
some  kind  of  value;  and  the  first  right  thought  of 
life  is  that  we  recognize  that  that  which  gives  our 
lives  chiefest  worth  has  been  invested  in  us  by  others. 
My  friends,  you  and  I  are  the  heirs  of  the  ages. 
For  you  and  me  Moses  wrote  and  David  sang  and 
the  seers  prophesied.  For  you  and  me,  Homer 
chanted  his  deathless  lays,  and  a  thousand  men  of 
genius  have  toiled  and  thought  and  suffered,  that  you 
and  I  might  be  what  we  are  today.  We  boast  of  our 
liberty;  we  are  proud  of  being  Americans;  proud  of 
having  a  government  "of  the  people,  by  the  people 
and  for  the  people."  Did  you  or  I  ever  do  anything 
much  that  we  might  be  free  today  —  free  to  say  the 
thing  we  believed;  free  to  come  and  go,  free  to  live 
out  our  lives?  Columbus  crossed  the  stormy  seas, 
our  fathers  followed  him,  and  in  their  toil  and  pain 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  73 

and  self-denial  wrought  out  this  new  empire  for  man. 

"For  none  of  us  liveth  to  himself,  and  no  man  dieth  to 
himself."  —  Romans  14:7 

Can  you  dispense  with  all  this  increment  of  the 
thought  and  toil  and  suffering  and  sacrifice  of  the 
ages  and  go  back  to  savagery?  You  can  not  do  it 
if  you  would,  and  would  not  do  it  if  you  could.  But 
how  lightly  you  and  I  have  been  using  this  marvelous 
thing  of  life,  as  if  it  were  only  our  own ! 

The  second  proposition  is  that  no  life  has  found 
its  true  meaning  which  does  not  take  account  of  two 
worlds.  The  life  that  now  is  and  that  which  is  to 
come.  Is  it  a  credit  to  any  one  whose  head  is  gray, 
that  he  begins  to  think  of  the  other  life?  I  would 
like  to  reach  those  whose  heads  are  not  gray,  and 
plead  with  them  to  think  while  it  is  time,  to  redeem 
life  from  unbelief  and  baseness  and  selfishness  and 
narrowness  into  faith  and  Tightness  and  nobility,  to 
think  of  life  as  belonging  to  two  worlds  now.  Two 
worlds,  this  one  so  brief,  the  other  unending!  What 
may  be  in  store  for  us  yonder?  That  is  the  question 
which  lifts  the  temporary,  the  transitory,  into 
eternal  consequence  and  moment.  What  have  I  done 
today  means  something  for  me  through  all  eternity. 
I  have  not  begun  to  face  the  problem  of  life  until  I 
have  seen  that. 

Then,  I  want  to  say  that  no  life  has  found  its  true 
meaning  which  is  not  right  with  God.  That  is  one  of 
the  last  things  we  think  of.    By  what  strange  involu- 


74  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

tion  of  reason  have  men  come  to  think  that  the  prin- 
cipal business  of  life  is  to  do  approximately  the  right 
thing  by  our  fellow  man?  Such  a  life  leaves  out  of 
the  problem  its  mightiest  factor  —  the  final,  deter- 
mining factor  of  all  life  —  God. 

Let  us  think  about  this  for  a  moment.  We  were 
speaking  of  investments  making  life  precious  and 
valuable.  Dear  friends,  the  investment  of  the  ages 
in  you  and  in  me,  the  heirship  which  the  poorest  child 
born  in  civilization  has  by  the  very  fact  of  being  born, 
is  but  the  smallest  part,  after  all,  of  the  investment 
which  God  Himself  has  made  in  your  life  and  mine. 
In  the  first  place,  He  gives  that  wonderful  thing 
which  we  use  lightly  and  think  so  ignobly  about  — 
life.  How  can  a  life  be  right  which  is  out  of  harmony 
with  its  Creator?  Science  tells  us,  —  modern  science, 
and  so  far  I  agree  with  it  wholly,  —  that  the  problem 
of  life  is  being  in  harmony  with  environment.  That 
is  right.  What  is  the  environment  of  every  human 
being?    God. 

"For  in  him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being:" 

—  Acts  17:28 

According  to  science  itself,  then,  no  life  can  be  right, 
no  life  can,  in  the  best  sense,  be  happy,  no  life  can 
have  any  well-grounded  hope  of  happiness  in  the 
future,  which  is  inharmonious  with  God.  How  many 
things  should  move  us  to  get  right  with  God!  We 
are  in  His  universe,  we  can  not  get  out  of  it.  For 
weal  or  woe,  for  ever  and  ever,  you  and  I  must  live 
within  its  utmost  rim. 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  75 

How  many  motives  He  has  given  us  to  make  life 
right  with  Himself!  Think  of  gratitude.  We  rightly 
call  ingratitude  the  basest  act  of  man.  There  is  some- 
thing about  ingratitude  —  there  is  something  about 
the  man  who  can  receive  kindnesses  and  favors  with- 
out being  moved  to  gratitude  in  return,  that  marks 
a  kind  of  incurable  baseness  of  nature.  You  and  I 
have  lived  on  God's  bounty  all  our  lives  and  perhaps 
we  have  never  said  with  David, 

"What  shall  I  render  unto  the  Lord  for  all  his  benefits 
toward  me? — Psalms  116:13 

And  remember  the  answer: 

"I  will  take  the  cup  of  salvation,  and  call  upon  the  name 
of  the  Lord."  —  Psalms  116:13 

It  is  all  we  can  do.  Gratitude  should  move  every  one 
of  us  to  get  right  with  God.  Prudence  should  move 
us  to  get  right  with  God.  Reason  alone  tells  us,  — 
and  with  this  the  Bible  is  in  harmony,  as  it  is  every- 
where and  in  everything  with  the  highest  reason  — 
that  there  can  be  no  enduring  happiness  in  a  life  which 
is  out  of  harmony  with  God.  And  we  all  want  to  be 
happy,  do  we  not? 

Now,  the  very  foundation  thought  concerning  the 
problem  of  life  is  the  thought  of  its  being  linked  with 
all  other  life.  Take,  for  instance,  the  matter  of  in- 
fluence. I  am  living,  let  me  say,  without  Christ  in 
the  world.  By  as  much  as  I  am  an  honorable,  a 
kindly,  a  worthy  man,  I  am  imperilling  the  eternal 


76  IN   MAW    PULPITS 

welfare  of  all  who  look  up  to  me.  If  my  life  is  a 
linked  life,  linked  with  other  lives,  what  right  have 
I  to  live  one  minute  when  my  influence  may  leave  a 
blot  on  another  life? 

And  the  second  thought,  remember,  is  that  we  must 
take  account  of  life  as  belonging  to  two  worlds,  this 
and  the  next.  Can  there  be  any  more  incredible 
folly  than  for  us  to  live  perilously  on  the  verge  of 
eternity,  as  we  know  every  one  of  us  does  live,  with- 
out being  able  to  count  tomorrow  as  ours,  and  to 
take  all  the  chances  of  the  unending  days  of  the  life 
beyond?  Ought  we  not  to  be  glad  that  God  has  made 
the  issue  between  Himself  and  humanity  so  simple? 
What  must  we  do  to  get  right  with  God?  What 
must  we  —  all  out  of  harmony  in  our  selfishness, 
with  His  unselfishness,  in  our  hatred,  with  His  love, 
in  our  sins,  with  His  holiness  —  what  must  we  do  to 
come  into  harmony  with  Him,  to  have  our  life  beat 
in  time  with  the  life  of  the  eternal?  He  makes  one 
simple,  definite  proposition  to  us,  and  it  is  wrapped 
up,  not  in  doctrine,  but  in  a  person.  His  one  propo- 
sition is  Jesus  Christ. 

All  life  turns,  in  the  last  analysis,  on  the  right 
answer  to  that  question, 

"What  shall  I  do  then  with  Jesus  which  is  called  Christ?" 

—  Matthew  27:22 

Pilate's  question.  Right  with  God,  we  are  right  with 
humanity.  Right  with  God,  through  Jesus  Christ, 
we  are  right  for  the  next  world  as  well  as  for  this. 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  77 

All  the  problems  of  life,  the  whole  meaning  of  life, 
centers  on  that  one  thing  —  what  is  Christ  to  me 
and  what  am  I  to  Him?  I  can  not  go  back  to  the 
law  —  it  only  curses  me,  for  I  have  broken  it.  I 
can  not  begin  today,  if  it  were  possible  for  me  to  do 
so,  to  live  so  that  every  act  of  my  life  shall  be  pleasing 
to  a  holy  God,  for  first  of  all  I  have  no  power  to  do  it, 
and  secondly,  there  is  my  record  up  to  today.  What 
can  make  me  right  with  God? 

To  do  the  thing  He  has  commanded  me  —  believe 
on  Jesus  Christ  whom  he  hath  sent.  Trust  Him. 
Give  myself  away  to  Him.  Put  my  whole  case  into 
His  hands.  Let  Him  take  this  life,  so  full  of  evil, 
and  put  the  evil  out  of  it.  Let  Him  take  this  life 
so  full  of  weakness  and  fill  it  with  strength.  Let 
Him  take  this  life  so  selfish  and  self-centered,  and 
let  it  flow  out  in  all  its  breadth  to  humanity.  Let 
Him  make  it  over.  Let  Him  purify  it.  Let  Him 
solve  all  its  problems.    Let  Jesus  Christ  fill  it. 


"BY   GRACE  THROUGH   FAITH" 


"BY   GRACE  THROUGH   FAITH" 

"  For  by  grace  are  ye  saved  through  faith ;  and  that  not  of 
yourselves:  it  is  the  gift  of  God:  "  —  Ephesians  2:8 

I  PREFER  the  rendering  in  the  Revised  Version. 
As  slight  as  the  change  is,  it  is  of  very  great 
moment,  as  a  little  reflection  will  show. 

"For  by  grace  have  ye  been  saved  through  faith,  and  that 
not  of  yourselves;  it  is  the  gift  of  God:"  —  Ephesians  2:8 

There  is  a  vast  significance  in  this  change  of  tense. 
The  Ephesian  saints  were  not  being  saved,  nor  to  be 
saved,  but  they  were  saved.  That  was  the  great 
message  they  got  in  this  letter;  and  if  there  had 
been  nothing  else  to  give  joy  to  their  hearts,  that 
alone  should  have  filled  them  to  overflowing.  You 
see  this,  I  am  sure.  Suppose  you  were  sailing  from 
one  of  our  eastern  seaports,  that  your  destination  was 
the  other  side  of  the  stormy  ocean,  and  you  could 
be  assured  upon  authority  beyond  question  that  your 
vessel  should  come  into  port.  What  a  comfort  it 
would  be  to  you  when  you  encountered  the  storms! 
When  your  ship,  tossed  here  and  there  and  beaten 
upon  by  the  resistless  waves,  seemed  as  if  it  must 
surely  go  to  the  bottom,  you  would  stay  your  hearts 

81 


IN    MANY    PULPITS 

upon  the  promise  that  notwithstanding  the  storm, 
you  should  conn-  safely  into  port. 

The  apostle  did  not  say  what  trials  they  should 
pass  through,  nor  from  what  trials  they  should  be 
spared;  he  did  not  say  what  tears  should  come  to 
their  eyes,  nor  what  joy  to  their  hearts,  but  he  said 
they  were  saved.  These  things  might  rend  them 
asunder  at  times,  might  almost  overwhelm  them,  but 
they  were  saved,  and,  being  saved,  knew  that  after 
the  storm  of  life  was  over,  they  were  sure  to  anchor 
in  the  port  of  heaven. 

Let  us  look  at  the  passage  itself.  We  have  here,  as 
you  see,  two  wonderful  things.  First,  a  wonderful 
result;  secondly,  the  wonderful  means  by  which  that 
result  is  accomplished.  The  wonderful  result  is  sal- 
vation. 

"By  grace  have  ye  been  saved."  —  Ephesians  2:8 

My  friends,  we  have  grown  so  familiar  with  that 
thought,  that  all  wonder,  strangeness  and  joy  have 
gone  out  of  it.  I  stand  in  amazement  at  my  own 
apathy,  at  my  own  lack  of  emotion,  at  my  own 
ability  to  speak  in  calm  and  measured  words  about 
so  great  a  thing  as  salvation,  accomplished  for  a 
doomed  soul.  Familiarity  has  done  this  for  us.  We 
count  it  a  common  thing.  We  are  scarcely  interested 
in  it.  Now  and  again  people  wonder  why  one  who 
preaches  does  not  choose  the  deeper  things  of  God, 
why  he  is  always  talking  about  so  familiar  a  thing 
as  salvation. 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  83 

I  remember  talking  some  years  ago  with  a  bank 
teller,  and  I  asked  him  how  it  seemed  to  him  to  be 
handling  vast  sums  of  money  all  of  the  time. 
"Why,"  said  he,  "I  never  think  of  this  coin  and  these 
notes  as  money,  but  only  as  so  many  figures  upon  a 
piece  of  paper."  So,  familiarity  with  salvation  may 
make  it  seem  to  us  as  but  a  plan  —  words  upon  a 
piece  of  paper. 

A  friend  was  telling  me,  that  when  visiting  the 
home  of  a  very  wealthy  man  on  the  New  England 
coast,  he  saw  in  one  of  the  most  beautiful  rooms  of 
the  house,  displayed  among  costly  things  from  over 
the  sea  —  rare  pictures  and  works  of  art  —  a  com- 
mon life  preserver.  "It  seems  to  me,"  he  ventured 
to  say  to  his  host,  "a  strange  fancy  of  yours  to  hang 
up  that  ordinary  life  preserver  among  all  these  rare 
and  beautiful  things."  "That,"  was  the  reply,  "is 
where  you  make  a  mistake.  That  is  not  an  ordinary 
life  preserver,  it  is  a  very  extraordinary  life  pre- 
server; it  kept  me  alive  four  days  at  sea."  Dear 
friends,  when  we  think  of  salvation  not  as  a  place, 
but  as  that  mighty  transaction  which  gave  us  life, 
which  keeps  us  alive  and  is  to  keep  us  alive,  we  shall 
get  back  the  joy  of  it,  and  the  wonder  of  it,  and  it 
will  never  become  a  common  thing  to  us. 

The  fact  is,  that  to  many  of  you,  salvation  never 
seemed  a  very  wonderful  or  joyful  thing.  Your  con- 
version perhaps  was  a  very  listless  affair;  so  much 
so,  that  it  has  hardly  left  a  trace  in  your  memory; 
you  do  not  know  just  when  you  were  converted.  It 
was  a  sort  of  sauntering  out  of  darkness  into  light, 


st  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

and  done  in  a  very  listless  kind  of  way.  May  God 
send  conviction  in  these  days!      David  said: 

"The  pains  of  hell  gal  hold  upon  me:"  —  Psalms  116:3 

And  we  should  not  wonder,  therefore,  when  David 
came  out  of  the  pains  of  hell,  that  he  began  to  talk 
about  the  joy  of  his  salvation.  Some  one  has  said 
that  the  reason  Mr.  Moody  preached  the  gospel  with 
such  power  was  that  God  had  permitted  him  to  look 
into  hell  and  up  into  heaven. 

Salvation  is  not  a  common  thing.  Think  what  it 
is  to  be  saved.  It  means  deliverance  from  an  awful 
doom.  I  do  not  know  how  awful,  but  I  know  some 
things  about  it  because  the  Bible  tells  us  some  things 
about  it.  I  know  it  is  separation  from  God.  It  is 
separation  from  the  good.  I  know  that  the  Bible 
exhausts  the  resources  of  language  to  pen  the  horrors 
and  woes,  condensed  into  that  little  word  which  we 
spell  with  four  English  letters  —  lost.  It  is  darkness, 
it  is  death,  it  is  fire,  it  is  the  undying  worm  —  and  all 
these  for  eternity.  Now,  it  is  salvation  from  that. 
Is  that  a  light  thing?  Is  that  a  thing  to  be  indifferent 
about?  Is  that  a  thing  to  get  tired  of  preaching 
about? 

Then,  on  the  positive  side  of  it,  it  means  pardon 
full  and  free;  everything  forgiven,  everything  for- 
gotten; the  slate  wiped  clean,  not  one  trace  of  our 
sins  even  in  the  memory  of  God;  not  one  transgres- 
sion left,  everything  blotted  out  and  gone.  You 
know  the  promise: 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  85 

"  I  have  blotted  out,  as  a  thick  cloud,  thy  transgressions," 

—  Isaiah  44:22 

When  a  thick  cloud  is  blotted  out,  is  there  any  scar 
left  upon  the  surface  of  the  sky?  Is  there  any  trace 
showing  where  the  cloud  was?  No,  it  is  gone  com- 
pletely, and  the  blue  is  there  just  as  blue  as  it  ever 
was,  just  as  clean  as  it  ever  was.  That  is  in  sal- 
vation. 

But  salvation  is  more  than  that.  The  great  thing 
in  salvation  is,  after  all,  that  it  brings  us  into  har- 
mony with  God;  it  sets  us  right  with  Him.  Did  you 
ever  think  of  it?  it  is  not  pardon  which  saves.  The 
pardon  removes  penalty  and  makes  salvation  pos- 
sible. It  would  not  be  a  kindness  to  set  free  all  the 
convicts  in  the  penitentiary  today.  It  would  merely 
be  giving  them  an  opportunity  to  commit  new  crimes, 
to  load  their  souls  with  new  guilt.  But  if  one  should 
go  down  to  that  sad  place  proclaiming  pardon,  and 
then  put  within  each  who  accepted  it  a  new  heart,  a 
heart  that  naturally  and  spontaneously  of  itself  and 
without  effort,  loved  honesty,  virtue  and  right  deal- 
ing, it  would  be  a  grand  thing  to  turn  all  the  convicts 
out  of  the  penitentiary.  That  is  precisely  what  sal- 
vation does. 

Skeptics  ask  why  God  does  not  save  them  if  He 
wishes  to.  If  God  were  to  bring  all  unbelievers  into 
heaven  at  their  death,  they  would  not  be  happy  there; 
they  would  simply  spoil  heaven,  and  make  it  what 
this  earth  is.  Salvation  is  reconciliation  to  God, 
loving  what  God  loves,  hating  what  God  hates,  and 


St;  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

desiring,  even  against  one's  self,  that  God's  will  may 
be  done.    This  is  the  larger  part  of  salvation. 

I  read  a  story  about  two  excursions  that  went  out 
of  the  harbor  of  buffalo,  New  York.  One  carried  a 
crowd  oi  men  going  to  a  prize  fight;  the  other  carried 
a  Sunday  School  picnic.  It  happened  that  one  out  of 
each  of  these  crowds  got  on  the  wrong  boat.  A 
prize  fighter  got  on  the  boat  that  carried  the  Sunday 
School  children,  and  a  deacon  got  on  the  boat  that 
carried  the  prize  fighters;  and  probably  the  two  un- 
happiest  men  on  Lake  Erie  that  day  were  those  two 
men,  simply  because  they  were  out  of  their  right  en- 
vironment. The  prize  fighter  was  utterly  miserable; 
and  the  deacon  —  you  may  imagine  his  feelings  as 
he  journeyed  over  the  waters  of  Lake  Erie  with  that 
swearing,  hoodlum  set. 

Salvation  is  not  a  question  of  locality;  it  is  not 
a  question  of  surroundings;  it  is  a  question  of  being 
made  right  with  God.  That  salvation  does,  and  that 
is  the  larger  part  of  salvation.    Think  of  it, 

''By  grace  have  ye  been  saved"  —  Ephesians   2:8 

made  right  with  God,  got  a  new  heart.  Salvation 
means  becoming  a  child  of  God,  coming  into  the 
family  of  God,  sitting  down  at  the  table  of  God,  as 
an  heir  of  God  and  a  joint  heir  with  Jesus  Christ. 
And  it  means  eternal  rest  and  peace  and  joy;  and  the 
eternal  begins  now. 

We  have  the  wonderful  means  of  salvation  set 
forth  in  this  text  and  that  in  two  words,  "grace"  and 
"faith."     Let  us  look  at  these  words. 


WITH   DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  87 

"By  grace  have  ye  been  saved  through  faith;" 

—  Ephesians  2:8 

Not  by  faith  through  grace.  Faith  does  not  save; 
grace  saves  through  faith.  Grace  the  divine  side, 
faith  the  human  side.  These  two  things  must  come 
together  to  produce  salvation.  Faith  here,  grace 
there.  When  faith  and  grace  meet  the  man  is  saved. 
He  is  not  being  saved,  nor  to  be  saved,  but  he  is 
saved.  When  his  faith  meets  God's  grace,  the  deed 
is  done. 

"Grace"  —  what  is  grace?  There  have  been  a 
great  many  definitions  of  grace  —  some  have  been 
helpful,  some  not.  There  is  a  story  of  a  little  girl 
who  said,  when  asked  what  grace  was:  "Please,  sir, 
it  is  getting  everything  for  nothing."  That  is  very 
good,  but  grace  is  more  than  that.  If  the  little  girl 
had  said:  "It  is  one  who  deserves  everything  bad, 
getting  everything  good  for  nothing,"  it  would  have 
been  nearer  a  definition  of  grace. 

Grace  is  more  than  mercy ;  grace  is  more  than  love ; 
grace  is  the  largest  word  in  the  Bible.  It  is  the 
greatest  word,  the  most  inclusive  word,  and  holds 
in  its  contents  more  than  any  other  word  of  human 
speech.  Imagine  a  criminal  guilty  of  having  robbed 
his  best  friend.  And  will  you  just  let  me  say,  dear 
friends,  that  the  most  moral  and  respectable  and 
decent  man  and  woman  in  this  audience  has  done 
that.  No  unbeliever  here  or  anywhere  else  ever  had 
so  good  a  friend  as  God  —  never.  For  whatever  we 
may  have  done  or  left  undone,  we  have  simply  lived 


88  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

upon  His  grace  up  to  this  day  —  we  have  breathed  it, 
eaten  it,  slept  on  it.  We  would  not  have  been  here 
but  lor  His  grace;  and  it  is  He  whom  we  have  robbed 
of  the  affection  that  is  His  right  due;  robbed  of  the 
service  that  belongs  to  Him;  robbed  of  fellowship; 
robbed  of  all  that  might  give  Him  joy  and  requite 
His  kindness.  Imagine,  I  say,  a  criminal  who  had 
robbed  his  best  friend  and  now  stood  before  his  judge. 
If  the  friend  whom  he  had  injured  were  to  plead  with 
the  judge  to  have  mercy  on  him,  that  would  be 
wonderful,  would  it  not?  That  would  be  marvelous 
kindness.  If  the  wronged  one  were  to  come  and  plead 
with  the  judge  for  the  ingrate  standing  there  in  his 
guilt,  that  would  be  wonderful.  But  grace  does  more 
than  that.  And  if  the  wronged  one  were  to  love 
the  wretch  who  had  wronged  him,  really  love  him, 
that  would  be  even  more  wonderful.  But  grace  is 
more  than  that.  To  get  a  true  illustration  of  grace, 
you  must  have  the  wronged  one  coming  to  the  judge 
and  saying,  "Let  the  sentence  fall  on  me;  I  do  not 
ask  that  this  righteous  law  shall  be  set  at  naught,  and 
treated  as  a  thing  to  be  set  at  naught;  the  law  is 
right.  But  let  it  sheathe  its  word  in  my  breast,  and 
let  him  go  free."  That  is  grace,  dear  friends,  that  is 
grace. 

"Who  his  own  self  bare  our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the 
tree" —  i  Peter  2:24 

All  the  waves  and  billows  of  God's  wrath  went  over 
Him  whom  we  have  wronged. 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  89 

"By  grace  have  ye  been  saved  through  faith;" 

—  Ephesians  2:8 

What  is  faith?  Grace  reaches  the  sinner  through 
faith;  it  is  the  channel.  So  much  is  evident  on  the 
very  surface  of  it.  It  is  not  saving  in  itself,  but  only 
instrumentally.  Some  people  have  tried  to  make  out 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  in  Scripture  as  a  faith  char- 
acter, that  God  so  approves  of  the  faith  principle,  that 
for  the  sake  of  the  Tightness  of  a  heart  which  is  ex- 
ercising faith,  He  pardons.  The  Bible  knows  nothing 
of  that.  The  Bible  is  not  a  book  of  dreams.  It  is 
not  a  book  of  indefinite  theologies.  The  Bible  is  a 
plain  straightforward  book,  one  that  any  wayfaring 
man  may  read  and  know;  and  it  never  speaks  of 
faith  character,  or  any  other  character  as  the  ground 
of  salvation.  Faith  is  the  channel  through  which 
grace  comes.  But  what  is  faith?  A  skeptical  physi- 
cian asked  that  question  of  a  Christian  patient.  He 
said:  "I  could  never  understand  saving  faith.  I 
believe  in  God  and  I  suppose  I  believe  in  Jesus 
Christ  —  I  am  not  conscious  of  any  doubts.  I 
believe  that  Jesus  Christ  was  the  Son  of  God, 
and  I  believe  in  the  Bible,  yet  I  am  not  saved. 
What  is  the  matter  with  me?"  "Well,"  said  the 
patient,  "a  day  or  two  ago  I  believed  in  you,  I  be- 
lieved in  you  as  a  very  skillful  physician:  I  believed 
that  you  would  be  able  to  heal  me  if  I  should  get  sick. 
Then  I  realized  that  I  was  sick,  and  I  sent  for  you 
and  put  myself  in  your  hands  to  be  healed.  In  other 
words  I  trusted  you.  For  two  days  now  I  have  been 
taking  some  mysterious  stuff  out  of  a  bottle.     I 


90  IN    MANY   PULPITS 

don't  know  what  it  is,  I  don't  understand  it,  but  I 
am  trusting  you."  Now,  whenever  you  turn  to  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  say,  "  Lord  Jesus,  Christianity 
seems  to  me  to  be  full  of  mysteries.  I  do  not  under- 
stand them,  but  I  believe  Thou  art  trustworthy  and 
1  trust  Thee;  I  commit  myself  to  Thee."  That  is 
faith.  A  very  simple  thing,  is  it  not?  The  faith 
of  the  patient  did  not  heal  him;  it  was  the  remedy 
that  healed  him;  but  the  faith  took  the  remedy. 
Saving  faith  is  the  faith  that  takes  Christ  to  save. 
But  does  not  the  text  say: 

"not  of  yourselves:  it  is  the  gift  of  God:"  —  Ephesians  2:8 

and  are  you  asking,  What  is  it,  this  "gift  of  God?" 
There  are  three  things,  grace,  faith,  salvation,  and 
these  are  all  the  gift  of  God.  But  here  is  the  sig- 
nificant fact,  dear  friends,  here  begins  your  responsi- 
bility: of  this  wonderful  trio  —  grace,  faith,  salva- 
tion —  you  have  already  received  the  gift  of  faith. 
Now  you  are  saying:  "If  I  have  faith,  if  already  God 
has  given  me  faith,  why  am  I  not  saved?"  Because 
you  have  not  used  it  rightly  —  that  is  all. 

Faith!  Why,  you  do  not  go  an  hour  of  the  day 
without  faith;  you  could  not  live  tomorrow  without 
faith.  You  have  faith  in  the  banks;  you  have  faith 
in  the  railroads;  faith  in  your  fellow  man;  faith  in 
the  family  tie;  faith  in  the  honor  of  your  husband  or 
your  wife;  faith  all  around;  faith  in  every  thing  but 
the  Christ  who  alone  is  worthy  to  be  trusted.  We 
trust  everything  that  changes,  everything  that  dis- 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  91 

appoints,  everything  that  fails,  and  refuse  to  trust 
Him  who  never  fails  and  never  disappoints.  But 
we  can  not  stand  up  before  Him  and  say  we  have  not 
the  power  to  do  it,  because  we  are  exercising  faith  in 
all  kinds  of  inferior  things  every  day  of  our  lives, 
and  because  we  have  but  to  take  that  same  faith  and 
lift  it  up  till  it  is  fixed  upon  Him,  and  we  have  formed 
the  bridge  over  which  that  marvelous  grace  comes, 
and  grace  brings  salvation. 

"For  the  grace  of  God  that  bringeth  salvation  hath  appeared 
to  all  men,"  —  Titus  2:11 

says  Paul,  and  it  comes  over  the  bridge  of  faith. 

I  remember  some  years  ago  when  the  Southern 
Hotel  in  St.  Louis  was  destroyed  by  fire,  there  was  an 
inquiry  made  by  the  authorities  into  the  cause  of 
the  disaster.  Some  of  the  servants  of  the  hotel  who 
had  been  rescued  from  the  topmost  story,  right  under 
the  roof,  by  the  heroism  of  an  Irish  fireman,  were 
giving  their  testimony,  and  a  question  was  asked  of 
one  of  these  servant  girls:  "How  were  you  saved 
from  this  fire?"  "Why,"  she  said,  "Mr.  O'Toole, 
the  fireman,  broke  into  the  room  and  said:  ' Maggie, 
let  me  take  you  down  the  ladder,'  and  I  let  him. 
That  is  the  way  I  was  saved." 

Dear  friends,  do  not  make  difficulties  about  these 
things  where  there  are  no  difficulties.  Faith  is  a 
gift  and  you  have  it.  Grace  is  a  gift  and  you  may 
have  it;  and  when  you  get  it  you  will  get  salvation 


98  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

with  it.  That  is  the  simplicity  that  is  in  Christ;  that 
is  the  blessed  gospel  of  God's  free  grace.  But  it  is 
all  a  gift;  it  is  not  for  sale.  God  is  not  trading  in 
this  matter  of  salvation;  He  is  not  giving  a  little 
salvation  for  a  little  goodness,  and  a  little  more  sal- 
vation for  a  little  more  goodness.  There  is  no  trad- 
ing; it  is  a  free  gift. 

There  was  a  poor  woman  whose  little  child  was 
siek.  She  lived  near  Windsor  Castle  and  could  look 
over  into  the  palace  gardens  and  see  the  grapes  grow- 
ing there.  She  thought  how  good  it  would  be  if  she 
could  have  a  few  of  those  grapes  for  her  little  fevered 
child.  So  she  took  a  shilling  and  went  into  the 
Queen's  garden  and  said  to  the  gardener:  "I  want  to 
buy  a  shilling's  worth  of  those  grapes."  "Do  you 
know,"  he  replied,  "those  grapes  belong  to  the  Queen 
and  the  Queen  does  not  sell  grapes?"  It  happened 
that  just  then  one  of  the  Queen's  children  was  stand- 
ing by,  and  he  said,  "My  good  woman,  my  mother 
does  not  sell  grapes,  but  she  will  give  you  just  as 
many  as  you  need." 

Well,  God  is  not  selling  salvation.  It  is  a  gift  or 
nothing,  and  it  is  for  you  today.  What  are  you  go- 
ing to  do  with  it?  In  His  name,  I  ask  you  what  are 
you  going  to  do  about  it?  What  are  you  going  to  do 
with  the  grace  of  God  before  the  close  of  this  sermon, 
and  it  is  nearly  done?  I  have  no  warrant  from  my 
Master  to  give  you  one  hour.  You  do  not  need  a 
minute.  People  talk  about  "thinking  it  over;"  you 
have  thought  it  over  all  your  lives.     You  need  to  act. 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  93 

Will  you  trust  Him,  this  Jesus  who  offers  you  eternal 
salvation  through  grace? 

"not  as  the  world  giveth,  give  I  unto  you.     Let  not  your 
heart  be  troubled,  neither  let  it  be  afraid." 

—  John  14:27 


BARABBAS   OR   CHRIST 


BARABBAS   OR   CHRIST 

"And  he  released  unto  them  him  that  for  sedition  and  murder 
was  cast  into  prison,  whom  they  had  desired ;  but  he  delivered 
Jesus  to  their  will."  —  Luke  23:25 

THIS  text  refers  to  the  man  Barabbas,  of  whom 
we  know  no  more  than  is  contained  in  the 
Biblical  story.  He  swings  for  one  awful  moment  into 
the  light,  is  for  that  moment  a  silent  figure  on  the 
stage  of  the  most  impressive  and  significant  tragedy 
in  the  history  of  the  universe;  an  unspeaking  actor, 
muffled  and  sinister ;  murderer,  robber,  brute ;  an  un- 
heeded pawn  in  the  game  of  ecclesiastical  bigots  and 
supple  politicians  in  which  the  stake  was  the  life 
of  the  Son  of  God,  —  the  amazed  beneficiary  of 
Christ's  death.  Then  he  passes,  and  we  hear  of  him 
no  more. 

Tradition,  of  course,  has  been  busy  with  his  name. 
His  unsought  connection  with  the  central  event  of  all 
history  is  too  dramatic  and  suggestive  to  permit 
Barabbas  to  escape  the  myth-maker.  And,  indeed, 
there  is  nothing  unlikely  in  the  traditions.  They  all 
make  him  to  have  become  a  disciple  of  the  divine 
Man  who  died  for  him  —  the  severest  of  penitents ; 
dwelling  in  deserts  and  caves;  bathed  in  unceasing 

97 


IN    MANY    PULPITS 

tears;  forgiven,  but  aever  able  to  forgive  himself 
that  the  adorable  Christ  should  have  died  on  his, 
Barabbas',  cross.    Let  us  hope  that  so  it  was. 

Did  I  say  just  now  that  Barabbas  "passes"?  No, 
we  pass;  Barabbas  remains.  The  men,  good  and  bad, 
who  come  into  the  old  Bible  story  never  pass.  Not 
without  purpose  are  they  there;  never,  so  long  as 
men  sin  or  repent,  bless  or  curse,  weep  or  laugh,  win 
or  lose  in  the  tragical  battle  we  call  life,  will  those 
Bible  personages  lose  significance.  And  none  of  them 
tells  the  story  of  the  cross  like  Barabbas;  no,  not 
even  Peter  and  James  and  John  —  not  even  Mary  of 
Bethany,  the  most  truly  spiritual  of  all  those  who 
gathered  about  Jesus  —  not  even  Mary  knows  the 
depths  of  the  meaning  of  the  cross  like  Barabbas. 
Paul  knows  the  theology  of  the  cross,  and  its  great 
ethical  meanings,  better  than  Barabbas;  but  no  man 
who  ever  lived,  except  Barabbas,  saw  Jesus  die  on 
a  cross  that  had  been  made,  not  for  Jesus,  but  for 
him.  Indeed,  if  you  and  I  are  to  understand  the 
central  significance  of  the  cross  we  must  look  through 
Barabbas'  eyes.     Let  us  try  to  do  that. 

Barabbas  was  condemned  to  die.  No  one  has  ever 
questioned  the  justice  of  his  sentence.  Perhaps  his 
mother,  waiting  outside  there  for  the  dawn  of  the 
morning  —  her  boy's  last  morning  —  has  been  tell- 
ing the  bystanders  how  sweet  a  baby  he  was;  what 
a  likely  lad,  brave  and  enterprising.  But  even  she 
did  not  say  that  he  was  innocent.  He  was  a  rebel 
against  the  law,  a  robber,  a  murderer.  And  so  are  we 
all.    We  have  broken  a  more  just,  a  better  law  than 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  99 

that  of  Rome;  we  have  robbed  God  of  our  love  and 
service;  and  we  have  murdered  our  own  innocence. 
Macbeth  had  but  murdered  sleep;  we  have  slain 
white  innocence.  And  the  outraged  law  had  laid 
strong  hands  on  Barabbas,  and  he  lay  bound  under 
sentence  of  death.  Like  us,  he  was  not  awaiting 
trial,  but  execution.  He  was  not  under  probation 
to  see  if  he  would  be  good,  but  under  doom  because 
he  had  proven  to  be  bad.    Like  us,  he  was 

"condemned  already,"  —  John  3:18 

Just  before  Barabbas,  as  his  only  prospect,  indeed, 
was  the  awful  death  of  crucifixion.  He  knew  what 
that  meant.  Long  hours  of  unspeakable  agony;  the 
hands  and  feet  torn  by  great  spikes;  the  wrist  and 
shoulder  joints  dislocated  by  the  dragging  down  of 
the  body;  each  quivering  nerve  a  separate  torture 
through  tension;  a  burning,  unquenchable  thirst;  and, 
all  around,  a  jeering,  taunting  mob.  All  the  horizon 
of  his  life  narrowed  down  to  that.  The  only  question 
was  —  when?  Even  that  began  to  be  answered.  The 
jailors  prepared  three  crosses.  Ah!  He  well  knew 
the  three  sockets  cut  in  the  hard  rock  out  there  at 
the  place  called  Golgotha,  the  Place  of  the  Skull. 
With  the  same  thirst  for  blood  that  has  made  us  seek 
to  witness  executions,  he  had  often  watched,  out  there, 
the  agonies  of  crucified  men.  Was  one  of  the  three 
crosses  for  him?  The  very  thought  gave  him  a  sense 
of  suffocation,  and  of  something  clutching  at  his 
throat.    Then  he  was  told.    Yes,  he  was  to  suffer  in 


100  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

tin'  morning.  Two  malefactors  were  to  die  with  him, 
but  he,  as  the  greater  criminal,  was  to  have  the  place 
of  eminence,  was  to  have  the  middle  cross.  He  ex- 
perienced a  moment  of  virile  pride.  That  was  true 
to  nature.  You  never  heard  robbers  boast  of  their 
greater  exploits,  you  say;  you  do  not  associate  with 
that  kind  of  people.  Are  you  sure?  Have  you 
never  heard  men  boast  of  the  greater  acumen  which 
enabled  them  to  win  in  the  game  called  "business" 
while  others  lost  to  them?  Have  you  never  heard 
a  "gentleman"  boast  of  the  number  of  drinks  which 
he  could  take  unmoved?  Have  you  never  heard  the 
same  kind  of  "gentleman"  boast  of  favors  which 
meant  blight  and  nameless  infamy,  the  ruin  of  purity, 
the  shame  of  homes?  Sin  is  not  a  nice  thing,  whether 
in  Barabbas  or  in  us.  It  is  low,  mean,  cowardly 
and  vile,  —  but  sinners  are  apt  to  take  a  strange 
pride  in  it. 

The  night  fell  —  Barabbas'  last  night  on  earth. 
But  it  was  a  disturbed  night.  Even  in  the  prison  it 
was  perceived  that  something  unusual  was  occurring. 
Confused  noises,  outcries,  the  tramping  of  feet,  pene- 
trated the  thick  walls.  Barabbas  dumbly  wondered 
what  it  all  meant.  Perhaps  it  was  another  insurrec- 
tion such  as  he,  poor  fool,  raised  against  the  majesty 
of  inflexible  law.  But  the  night  wore  on,  and  at  last 
it  was  daylight  —  the  light  of  Barabbas'  last  day. 
And  now  he  heard  footsteps,  the  key  ground  in  the 
lock,  his  prison  door  swung  open;  but,  just  as  he 
summoned  all  his  brute  fortitude  for  the  awful  ordeal 
before  him,  he  heard  the  joyful  words:    "Go  free, 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  101 

Barabbas!  Another  takes  your  place.  Another  is  to 
die  between  the  two  malefactors!" 

As  Barabbas  emerged  into  the  free,  glorious  sun- 
shine the  crowd  was  already  surging  out  toward  the 
Place  of  the  Skull.  And  then,  if  not  before,  the 
desire  must  have  arisen  to  know  who  had  been  con- 
demned to  die  in  his  place.  One  can  easily  imagine 
how  Barabbas  followed  the  throng,  striving  eagerly 
to  see  the  man  who  was  to  die  for  him.  Perhaps  it 
was  not  until  the  sound  of  the  hammer,  driving  the 
spikes  into  the  hands  and  feet  of  Jesus,  had  ceased, 
and  the  cross  —  Barabbas'  cross  —  had  been  up- 
reared,  bearing  its  awful  burden,  that  Barabbas  saw 
the  man  who  was  dying  in  his  place.  We  may  well 
believe  that,  moved  by  that  strange,  irresistible  draw- 
ing of  which  Jesus  spoke  when  he  said: 

"And  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  will  draw  all  men 
unto  me."  —  John  12:32 

Barabbas  pressed  his  way  through  the  howling  mob 
until  he  stood,  looking  up  into  the  face  of  Jesus. 
Barabbas  knew  Him,  of  course.  His  substitute  in 
agony  there  was  the  new  Teacher  out  of  Galilee.  It 
must  have  seemed  a  strange  thing  to  Barabbas  that 
Jesus,  of  all  men,  should  be  there  on  a  cross.  Again 
and  again,  no  doubt,  Barabbas  had  been  of  the  throng 
which  pressed  about  Jesus,  and  hung  upon  His  words. 
Even  the  dead  heart  of  the  robber  had  been  stirred 
by  those  words.  Jesus  did  not  exhort  people  to  go  to 
feasts,  and  perform  religious  ceremonies,  but  to  be- 
lieve in  Him  and  to  be  merciful  and  gentle  and  loving. 


UK  IN    MAW    PULPITS 

In  particular,  perhaps,  Barabbas  remembered  one 
clay  when  the  new  Teacher  seemed  especially  moved. 
The  good,  religious  people,  the  influential  preachers 
of  the  day,  had  brought  against  Jesus  the  damning 
accusation  that  He  associated  with  sinners  —  in  fact, 
that  He  went  so  far  as  to  eat  with  them.  Then 
Barabbas  and  the  other  bystanders  saw  in  the  sweet 
face  of  the  new  prophet  something  they  had  never 
before  seen  in  any  human  face;  they  saw  the  wreath 
of  perfect  love.  And  Jesus  had  told  two  stories 
which  Barabbas  had  never  forgotten.  The  first  was 
about  a  sheep  which  had  strayed  away.  The  shepherd 
had  ninety  and  nine  good,  docile,  obedient  sheep  left, 
but,  putting  them  into  the  fold  in  the  wilderness,  he 
went  after  his  sheep  that  was  lost.  And  when  he  had 
found  his  sheep  he  brought  it  tenderly  home  on  his 
shoulders,  and  made  great  rejoicing.  And  the 
Teacher  said: 

"there  is  joy  in  the  presence  of  the  angels  of  God" 

—  Luke  15:10 

when  just  one  sinner  was  brought  back,  as  that  sheep 
had  been.  That  was  new  doctrine.  Barabbas  glanced 
at  the  good,  religious  men,  —  the  men  who  prayed 
often  on  the  corners  of  the  streets  thanking  God  that 
they  were  not  as  other  men,  —  and  saw  their  brows 
darken.  Their  doctrine  was  that  the  angels  rejoiced 
when  they  saw  Pharisees  performing  religious  cere- 
monies. 

There  was  another  story  about  a  woman  losing  one 
piece  of  silver  and  sweeping  the  house  till  she  found 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  103 

it,  and  Barabbas  understood  that  Jesus  was  looking 
for  sinners,  bad  people,  as  the  woman  looked  for  her 
silver. 

Yes,  Barabbas  knew  the  man  who  was  suffering 
there  on  his,  Barabbas',  cross.  He  was  a  sinless  man. 
Everybody  agreed  to  that.  True,  the  big  preachers 
accused  Him  of  being  a  Sabbath  breaker ;  but  every- 
body knew  that  He  was  holy.  Why  should  such  a 
Being  be  dying  there  a  death  of  shame  on  Barabbas' 
cross?  Even  the  august  sufferer  seemed  to  feel  that, 
for  out  of  darkness  he  cried: 

"My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?" 

—  Matthew  27:46 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  Barabbas  had  no  need  to  be  a 
theologian  to  form  a  good  working  theory  of  the 
atonement. 

He  knew  that  he  was  a  guilty  wretch,  under  the 
righteous  condemnation  of  the  law.  And  in  both 
these  respects  Barabbas  was  a  representative  of  all 
men. 

"As  it  is  written,  There  is  none  righteous,  no,  not  one:" 

—  Romans  3:10 

"For  all  have  sinned,  and  come  short  of  the  glory  of  God." 

—  Romans  3:23 

"For  as  many  as  are  of  the  works  of  the  law  are  under  the 
curse:  for  it  is  written,  Cursed  is  every  one  that  con- 
tinued! not  in  all  things  which  are  written  in  the  book  of 
the  law  to  do  them."  —  Galatians  3:10 


lot  IN  MANY   PULPITS 

Barabbas  knew  that  the  Sufferer  before  him  had  done 
DO  sin.  He  knew  that  Jesus  was,  for  him,  a  true 
substitute.  Christ  was  verily  and  actually  dying  in 
his  place  and  Stead;  an  innocent  and  holy  Being  bear- 
ing the  very  penalty  which  the  law  had  justly  decreed 
to  him,  Barabbas.  Whoever,  in  the  coming  ages, 
might  question  whether  Christ's  death  was  vicarious 
and  substitutional,  he  could  never  question  it. 


"For  he  hath  made  him  to  be  sin  for  us,  who  knew  no  sin; 
that  we  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God  in  him." 

—  //  Corinthians  5:21 

"Christ  hath  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  being 
made  a  curse  for  us:  for  it  is  written,  Cursed  is  every  one 
that  hangeth  on  a  tree:"  —  Galatians  3:13 

"Who  did  no  sin,  neither  was  guile  found  in  his  mouth; 
Who,  when  he  was  reviled,  reviled  not  again;  when  he 
suffered,  he  threatened  not;  but  committed  himself  to  him 
that  judgeth  righteously: 

Who  his  own  self  bare  our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the 
tree,  that  we,  being  dead  to  sins,  should  live  unto  righteous- 
ness: by  whose  stripes  ye  were  healed."  —  /  Peter  2:22-24 

"For  Christ  also  hath  once  suffered  for  sins,  the  just  for  the 
unjust,  that  he  might  bring  us  to  God,  being  put  to  death 
in  the  flesh;  but  quickened  by  the  Spirit:"—/  Peter  3:18 

"But  he  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions,  he  was  bruised 
for  our  iniquities:  the  chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon 
him;  and  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed. 
All  we  like  sheep  have  gone  astray;  we  have  turned 
every  one  to  his  own  way ;  and  the  Lord  hath  laid  on  him 
the  iniquity  for  us  all."  —  Isaiah  53:5-6 

Barabbas  knew  that  he  had  done  nothing  whatever 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.   SCOFIELD  105 

to  merit  the  marvelous  interposition  of  that  substitu- 
tional death.  Whatever  may  have  been  back  of  it,  it 
reached  him  as  an  act  of  pure  grace. 

"Thou  hast  known  my  reproach,  and  my  shame,  and  my 
dishonour:  mine  adversaries  are  all  before  thee. 
Reproach  hath  broken  my  heart;  and  I  am  full  of  heavi- 
ness; and  I  looked  for  some  to  take  pity,  but  there  was 
none;  and  for  comforters,  but  I  found  none." 

—  Psalms  6q:iq—20 

"But  God,  who  is  rich  in  mercy,  for  his  great  love  wherewith 
he  loved  us, 

Even  when  we  were  dead  in  sins,  hath  quickened  us 
together  with  Christ,  (by  grace  ye  are  saved; ) 
And  hath  raised  us  up  together,  and  made  us  sit  to- 
gether in  heavenly  places  in  Christ  Jesus: 
That  in  the  ages  to  come  he  might  shew  the  exceeding 
riches  of  his  grace  in  his  kindness  toward  us  through  Christ 
Jesus. 

For   by   grace   are   ye   saved   through    faith;    and    that 
not  of  yourselves:  it  is  the  gift  of  God: 
Not  of  works,  lest  any  man  should  boast." 

—  Ephesians  2:4-9 

"Who  hath  saved  us,  and  called  us  with  an  holy  calling, 
not  according  to  our  works,  but  according  to  his  own  pur- 
pose and  grace,  which  was  given  us  in  Christ  Jesus  before 
the  world  began,"  —  //  Timothy  1:9 

"In  hope  of  eternal  life,  which  God,  that  cannot  lie, 
promised  before  the  world  began;"  —  Titus  1:2 

"Now  to  him  that  worketh  is  the  reward  not  reckoned  of 
grace,  but  of  debt. 

But  to  him  that  worketh  not,  but  believeth  on  him  that 
justifieth  the  ungodly,  his  faith  is  counted  for  right- 
eousness." —  Romans  4:4,  5 


106  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

Barabbas  knew  thai  Christ's  death  for  him  was  per- 
fectly efficacious.  There  was,  therefore,  nothing  for 
him  to  add  to  it.  Just  because  Christ  was  dying  he 
was  living.  The  only  question  before  Pilate  was, 
whether  Christ  should  die  or  Barabbas.  When  it  was 
decided  that  Christ  should  die  Barabbas  was  set  free. 
Whether  Barabbas  became  the  disciple  of  Jesus 
who  died  in  his  place  we  do  not  know.  What  is  more 
important  for  us,  is  to  decide,  each  for  himself,  that 
we  shall  be  His  disciples. 


THE   DEMON  OF  WORRY 


THE   DEMON  OF  WORRY 

"Therefore  take  no  thought,  saying,  What  shall  we  eat?  or, 
What  shall  we  drink?  or,  Wherewithal  shall  we  be  clothed?" 

—  Matthew  6:31 

"Take  therefore  no  thought  for  the  morrow:"  —  Matthew  6:34 

SOME  of  the  things  that  Jesus  Christ  found  in  the 
world  seem  to  have  caused  Him  surprise.  We 
are  told  that  He  marveled  because  of  unbelief.  That 
any  one  should  doubt  God  caused  the  Son  of  God 
not  indignation  so  much  as  astonishment.  He  felt, 
in  the  face  of  distrust  of  divine  veracity  or  of  the 
divine  goodness,  an  emotion  of  simple  amazement. 
And  another  fact  of  the  life  men  live  on  the  earth 
appears  to  have  struck  Him  as  foolish  and  unreason- 
able —  the  fact  that  the  race  of  men  is  an  anxious,  a 
worried  race. 

In  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  He  deals  with  this 
fact  of  worry.  He  gives  to  it  more  space  than  to 
adultery  or  murder.  I  should  not  conclude  from  that, 
that  in  the  divine  estimation  worry  is  a  graver  sin 
than  adultery  or  murder,  but  only  that  it  is  far  more 
prevalent. 

Wherever  Christ  looked  He  saw  the  unmistakable 
traces  of  anxiety.    All  faces  bore  that  sinister  mark. 

109 


110  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

Hie  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  the  constitution  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth  and  that  kingdom  ex- 
cludes worry.  God  Himself  could  not  make  an 
anxious  world  happy.  Let  us  see  how  Jesus  Christ 
proposes  to  banish  worry  from  his  world.  First  of 
all,  he  teaches  us  that  we  worry  about  the  wrong 
things. 

•Therefore  I  say  unto  you,  Take  no  thought  for  your  life, 
what  ye  shall  eat,  or  what  ye  shall  drink;  nor  yet  for  your 
body,  what  ye  shall  put  on.  Is  not  the  life  more  than 
meat,  and  the  body  than  raiment?"  —  Matthew  6:25 

In  the  last  analysis  we  shall  find,  if  we  make  that 
analysis  fearlessly,  that  our  worry  is  not  about  mere 
food  and  mere  raiment,  but  about  superfluous  food 
and  superfluous  raiment,  and  our  Lord  would  call 
us  back  to  the  consciousness  that  life  itself  is  an  in- 
finitely larger  thing  than  the  externals  of  life.  The 
men  and  women  who  have  touched  this  life  of  hu- 
manity powerfully  and  helpfully  have  always  been 
such  as  brought  the  facts  of  life  into  the  right  perspec- 
tive, counting  life  too  high  and  beautiful  a  thing  to 
waste  itself  in  overmuch  thought  about  its  mere 
incidents. 

Are  we  thinking  thus  nobly  about  life  and  life's 
meanings?  Have  we  thought  about  life  itself,  the 
wonder  of  it,  the  deeper  meanings  of  it,  the  measure- 
less possibilities  of  even  one  day  of  it?  Do  we  habit- 
ually think  of  life  as  a  trust  rather  than  a  possession? 
Do  we  think  of  sometime  giving  an  account  of  our 
administration  of  that  trust?    Do  we  think  of  the  tre- 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  111 

mendous  investment  which  God  and  humanity,  and 
even  the  mere  creature  world,  has  made  and  is  con- 
stantly making,  just  that  we  may  have  life? 

Then,  too,  Christ  puts  over  against  our  causes  of 
anxiety  the  fatherhood  of  God. 

"Behold  the  fowls  of  the  air:  for  they  sow  not,  neither  do 
they  reap,  nor  gather  into  barns ;  yet  your  heavenly  Father 
feedeth  them.    Are  ye  not  much  better  than  they?" 

—  Matthew  6:26 

"And  why  take  ye  thought  for  raiment?  Consider  the  lilies 
of  the  field,  how  they  grow;  they  toil  not,  neither  do  they 
spin ; 

And  yet  I  say  unto  you,  That  even  Solomon  in  all  his 
glory  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these. 
Wherefore,  if    God    so    clothe    the    grass    of    the    field, 
which   today  is,   and   tomorrow  is  cast   into   the   oven, 
shall  he  not  much  more  clothe  you,  O  ye  of  little  faith?" 

—  Matthew  6:28-30 

The  Christian  is  not  an  orphan  in  an  unfriendly 
universe.  He  is  a  child  of  the  God  who  feeds  the 
birds  and  clothes  the  flowers,  making  each  the  subject 
of  His  solicitude.  It  has  been  estimated,  taking  as  a 
basis  the  quantity  known  to  be  necessary  for  their 
sustenance,  that  no  millionaire  on  earth  could  feed 
God's  birds  one  day.  But  God  feeds  them  every  day, 
and  is  no  whit  poorer  at  night.  "Now,"  says  Christ, 
in  effect,  "that  is  what  the  Christian's  Father  does  for 
flowers  and  birds.  Will  He  not  do  as  much  for  His 
dear  children?"  The  argument  is  unanswerable.  And 
it  covers  the  very  causes  of  that  anxiety  which  is 
whitening  the  heads  and  prematurely  furrowing  the 


118  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

faces  of  God's  children  in  the  world.  It  is  no  wonder 
that  men  have  imagined  a  multitude  of  invisible 
spirits  at  work  upon  the  human  countenance  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave,  spirits  of  light  and  spirits  of 
darkness,  spirits  angelic  and  spirits  from  the  pit; 
that  with  viewless  gravers  they  patiently  inscribe  the 
lines  which  mark  every  thought  and  action.  Of  course 
the  deeper  and  even  more  awful  truth  is  that  human 
thoughts  and  actions  are  self-recording,  and  that, 
struggle  against  it  as  we  may,  that  record  is  wrought 
into  the  substance  of  the  human  face. 

O,  the  records  that  faces  bear!  As  our  eyes  grow 
wise  to  see,  what  confessions,  fain  hidden,  stand  out 
from  the  faces  of  the  crowd!  And  no  demon  drives 
his  pitiless  graver  deeper,  nor  with  more  certain 
stroke,  than  the  hateful  demon  worry.  And  the  lines 
he  makes  are  ignoble  lines ;  lines  in  which  he  who  runs 
may  read  the  story  of  happiness  of  homes  eaten  away 
by  little  and  little  as  with  a  biting  acid;  of  home  made 
hateful  to  husband  and  children;  of  love  worn  to  the 
breaking  point  —  and  all  about  things  that  pass  and 
perish  with  the  day;  things  of  no  vital  moment;  things 
upon  which  neither  the  true  happiness  nor  honor  nor 
usefulness  of  life  depend.  O,  the  pity  of  it.  O,  the 
miserable  shame  of  it,  that  on  a  face  made  beautiful 
by  God  there  should  be  ignoble  worry  marks! 

Suppose  such  an  one  had  trusted  God  about  all 
those  causes  of  anxiety.  Suppose  such  an  one  had 
said:  "My  Father  feeds  the  birds;  He  clothes  the 
flowers;  He  will  assuredly  feed  me  and  mine;  He  will 
clothe  us."     Ah,  the  happy  spirits  with  the  other 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  113 

gravers  would  have  written  on  that  face  other  lines  — 
lines  of  serenity,  lines  of  happy  trust,  lines  which 
would  have  made  the  face  a  benediction  and  a  blessed 
memory. 

Thirdly,  Christ  reminds  the  anxious  one  of  earth 
that,  after  all,  worry  does  no  good. 

"Which  of  you  by   taking  thought  can  add  one  cubit 
unto  his  stature?"  —  Matthew  6:27 

The  waste  of  it!  The  uselessness  of  it!  All  the 
worry  that  ever  got  itself  accomplished  in  this  weary, 
worrying  world;  all  the  sleepless  nights,  all  the  bur- 
dened days;  all  the  joyless,  mirthless,  peace-destroy- 
ing, health-destroying,  happiness-destroying,  love- 
destroying  hours  that  men  and  women  have  ever  in  all 
earth's  centuries  given  to  worry,  never  wrought  one 
good  thing.  It  was  all  evil  and  only  evil.  It  shut  out 
the  face  of  God,  the  loveliness  of  nature,  the  joy  of 
love,  the  compensations  of  life.  It  poisoned  the  peace 
of  others  and  cast  its  hateful  shadow  over  other  lives. 
The  very  point  of  the  sin  of  worry,  the  very  reason 
why  it  is  the  basest,  most  cowardly  of  sins,  is  that  it 
darkens  the  lives  we  are  most  responsible  to  bless  — 
and  all  for  no  good,  but  only  to  blight  and  wrong. 

The  amazing  thing  about  it  is  that  no  one  is  con- 
victed of  this  mean  sin!  Good  people  live  in  it,  and 
with  no  sense  of  the  outrage  which  it  involves  against 
the  love  of  a  kind,  heavenly  Father  and  against  the 
rights  of  others!  A  Christian  man  will  not  scruple  to 
bring  to  his  home  the  petty  worries  and  passing  anx- 


lit  IN    MANY   PULPITS 

ieties  of  the  day.  Christian  women,  —  women  whose 
lives  arc  pure,  who  scorn  scandal,  who  devote  life  and 
strength  unsparingly  to  the  service  of  husband  and 
children,  will  yet  shamelessly  poison  the  peace  of 
home  by  the  sin  of  worry,  and  with  no  apparent  sense 
o\  the  guilt  of  it!  It  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  human 
nature. 

"Take  therefore  no  thought  for  the  morrow:  for  the  morrow 
shall  take  thought  for  the  things  of  itself.  Sufficient  unto 
the  dav  is  the  evil  thereof."  —  Matthew  6:34 


PRAYER 


PRAYER 

"And  it  came  to  pass,  that,  as  he  was  praying  in  a  certain 
place,  when  he  ceased,  one  of  his  disciples  said  unto  him, 
Lord,  teach  us  to  pray,"  —  Luke  11:1 

THE  Lord's  Prayer  is  not  a  form,  but  a  model 
which  our  Lord  gave  to  his  disciples.  It  is  a 
prayer  of  the  kingdom;  a  prayer  suited  to  the  dis- 
ciples at  that  time,  when  the  Lord  was  preaching  the 
kingdom  as  "at  hand,"  and  not  the  gospel  of  the 
grace  of  God,  which  tells  of  a  crucified  Christ  and 
pardon  for  sin  through  him.  Its  abiding  value  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  is  a  model  and  not  a  form.  One  of 
our  Lord's  disciples,  evidently  speaking  for  all  of 
them,  had  said, 

"Lord,  teach  us  to  pray,"  —  Luke  11:1 

and  the  Lord's  Prayer  is  part  of  his  answer.  Notice, 
first  of  all,  the  singularity  of  this  disciple's  petition. 
These  men  were  Jews,  and  as  Jews  had  been  brought 
up  to  pray.  They  had  always  prayed.  Further- 
more, they  had  been,  many  of  them,  John's  disciples, 
and  one  of  the  things,  it  appears,  that  John  taught 
his  disciples  was  to  pray.  But  here  there  is  a  desire 
unsatisfied.    These  disciples,  who  were  brought  up 

117 


lis  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

to  pray  and  who  had  been  in  a  kind  of  preliminary 
school  of  prayer,  still  felt  that  they  did  not  know 
how  to  pray.  It  is  a  good  sign  when  a  Christian  can 
no  longer  be  satisfied  with  religious  forms;  he  is 
ready  for  realities.  There  is  a  tremendous  contrast 
between  praying  and  saying  prayers. 

The  first  testimony  which  God  ever  bore  to  the 
apostle  Paul  after  his  conversion  was: 

"behold,  he  prayeth," — Acts  g:n 

Why,  Paul  was  not  only  an  intensely  religious  man, 
but  an  Oriental.  All  Orientals  pray.  In  that  land 
today  a  muezzin  from  the  minaret  of  the  mosque  calls 
the  faithful  to  prayer.  "Come  to  prayer;  prayer 
is  good;  prayer  is  good;  come  to  prayer."  Wherever 
a  Mohammedan  is,  he  spreads  his  prayer-carpet;  — 
it  may  be  in  the  street,  but  he  kneels,  and  turns  his 
face  toward  Mecca  and  prays,  —  prays  until  the  per- 
spiration pours  from  his  face,  all  unconscious  of 
passers-by.  So  Paul  had  been  saying  prayers  all  his 
life,  and  yet  one  day  he  met  Jesus  on  the  Damascus 
road,  and  began  for  the  first  time  to  pray.  From  that 
moment  form  became  intolerable  to  him,  except  as 
it  clothed  spiritual  realities. 

Notice  again,  that  it  was  the  praying  of  our  Lord 
Jesus,  which  suggested  to  His  disciples  their  need  of 
instruction  in  the  art  of  prayer. 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that,  as  he  was  praying  in  a  certain 
place,  when  he  ceased,  one  of  his  disciples  said  unto  him, 
Lord,  teach  us  to  pray,"  —  Luke  11:1 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  110 

I  do  not  know  what  it  was  in  Jesus'  praying  that 
suddenly  brought  home  to  these  watching  disciples 
the  consciousness  that  they  needed  to  be  taught  to 
pray.  Whether  it  was  the  expression  in  the  face  of 
our  Lord,  of  a  radiant,  triumphant  trust  in  the  Father 
to  whom  He  prayed,  whether  it  was  a  ring  of  certainty 
that  God  heard  Him  and  would  answer  His  prayer, 
whether  there  was  an  accent  of  reality  in  it  all,  so 
that  it  seemed  to. those  disciples  clear  that  their  Lord 
was  not  engaged  in  a  religious  exercise,  but  was 
getting  something  from  God,  that  moved  them  to 
ask  this  question,  I  do  not  know.  But  something 
in  His  praying  stirred  them. 

Have  you  thought  of  the  prayer-life  of  Jesus? 
Here  was  a  perfectly  sinless  man  —  tempted  in  all 
points  like  as  we  are,  apart  from  indwelling  sin  — 
the  Son  of  God,  incarnate  as  Mary's  son,  walking  the 
pathway  of  dependence  as  we  must  here,  never  help- 
ing Himself  by  His  own  almightiness,  casting  Himself 
in  absolute  human  dependence  upon  the  sustaining 
power  and  guiding  wisdom  of  His  father  in  heaven. 
It  is  an  inevitable  sequence  of  taking  the  place  of 
dependence  before  God.  If  I  am  self-confident,  if 
I  have  a  kind  of  spiritual  arrogance  and  believe 
that  I  am  sufficient  unto  myself,  I  shall  not  pray 
much ;  that  is  one  thing  that  cuts  the  nerve  of  prayer; 
and  another  is  that  benumbing  doubt  as  to  whether 
it  does  any  good.  If  we  want  to  see  the  life  of 
prayer  exemplified  we  turn  to  the  earth-life  of  the 
Lord  Jesus.  We  read  that  when  some  crisis  of 
His  life  was  coming  he  continued  all  night  in  prayer 


120  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

to  God.  And  remember,  it  was  praying;  it  was  real 
praying,  all  night.  He  was  praying  when  He  was 
transfigured.  Why  is  not  transformation  into  the 
likeness  of  Christ  more  rapidly  progressing  in  us? 
We  do  not  pray  enough. 

•Aiul  as  he  prayed   the  fashion  of  his  countenance  was 
altered,"  —  Luke  q:2Q 

My  friends,  if  our  faces  were  turned  upward  more  I 
am  persuaded  there  would  be  on  them  some  of  that 
shining  glory  that  the  face  of  Moses  caught  when  he 
was  on  the  mount  with  God.  How  much  Jesus 
prayed!  He  prayed  in  Gethsemane,  He  prayed  at 
Calvary  —  prayer  was  His  vital  breath.  Prayer  is 
"the  Christian's  vital  breath."  We  can  have  no 
strong  life  without  prayer,  and  the  more  prayer  the 
stronger  the  life. 

"Lord,  teach  us  to  pray,"  —  Luke  11:1 

You  see,  there  was  the  sense  of  need  even  in  that 
petition.  The  trouble  with  us  is  that  we  think  we 
could  pray  if  we  would;  if  we  only  had  a  mind  to 
pray;  if  we  only  determined  to  pray.  But  no,  we 
need  to  be  taught  to  pray.  Let  us  get  down  out  of 
our  self-satisfaction,  and  our  experience,  and  our 
spiritual  pride  and  confess  that  we  do  not  even  know 
how  to  pray.  Then  let  us  enter  the  school  of  Christ 
and  I  am  sure  He  will  teach  us  some  precious  lessons. 
How  does  He  begin  to  teach  us  to  pray? 

"When  ye  pray,  say,  Our  Father"  —  Luke  11:2 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  121 

That  is  Jesus  Christ's  philosophy  of  prayer.  The 
Christian  is  not  an  orphan.  Goldwin  Smith  said  that 
the  worst  consequence  of  atheism  was  to  leave  man 
orphaned  in  a  vast  vortex  of  blind  force.  How  true 
that  is!  Every  one  of  us  who  stops  to  think,  feels 
that  his  life  is  played  in  upon  by  mysterious  forces  — 
waves  and  billows  of  influence  that  arise  outside  him- 
self and  come  from  he  knows  not  where.  Possibly 
some  wicked  ancestor  lives  in  him,  and  all  the  tur- 
bulence of  a  life  which  was  lived  centuries  ago  is 
reproduced  in  him  today.  Let  us  then  learn  this  first 
lesson  in  Christ's  school  of  prayer;  it  is  that  prayer  is 
asking  a  Father  for  something.  He  bases  prayer  on 
relationship  and  prayer  is  just  going  to  the  Father 
with  a  child's  need.    See  how  he  dwells  upon  this: 

"If  a  son  shall  ask  bread  of  any  of  you  that  is  a  father,  will 
he  give  him  a  stone?  or  if  he  ask  a  fish,  will  he  for  a  fish 
give  him  a  serpent? 

Or  if  he  shall  ask  an  egg,  will  he  offer  him  a  scorpion? 
If  ye  then,  being  evil,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts 
unto  your  children;  how  much  more  shall  your  heavenly 
Father"  —  Luke  11:1 1-13 

That  is  the  true  and  whole  philosophy  of  prayer. 
But  how  many  inadequate  and  foolish  philosophies 
there  are!  One  tells  us  that  God  is  a  God  of  law; 
another  that  He  has  enacted  certain  great  laws  of 
nature  which  govern  the  condition  of  human  life  in 
His  universe,  and  if  we  learn  those  laws  and  live 
in  accordance  with  them,  we  shall  then  live 
happy  lives.    That  is  true,  of  course.     But  Christ's 


m  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

answer  is  that  God  is  something  more  than  a  decree 
maker,  something  more  than  the  Creator  and  Ruler 
oi  the  universe.  Over  and  above  all  that  is  the 
fatherhood  of  God.  He  says  in  effect,  "This  Father 
of  yours  does  not  make  decrees  and  laws,  but  He  is  a 
Father,  and  His  fatherhood  dominates  His  decree 
making."    God  is  first  of  all  a  Father. 

Secondly,  Christ  gave  His  disciples  a  model  of 
prayer.  And  what  does  the  model  teach  us?  That 
true  prayer  is  worshipful: 

"Hallowed  be  thy  name."  —  Luke  11:2 
I  say  "Our  Father,"  and  then  I  remember  that  it  is 

"Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven,"  —  Luke  11:2 
The  God  of  all  creation.     Our  Father,  but  God. 
"Hallowed  be  thy  name."  —  Luke  11:2 

The  model  puts  God  first: 

"Thy  kingdom  come."  —  Luke   11:2 

And  I  say,  "Lord,  here  is  this  desire  of  my  heart, 
which  maybe  I  have  asked  in  ignorance;  if  it  is  not, 
after  all,  the  right  thing,  if  it  comes  in  the  way  of 
the  kingdom,  then  answer,  'no.'  The  kingdom  first." 
And  then  what  we  need  presented  briefly.  Prayer 
brings  us  right  into  that  presence.  I  am  in  temptation, 
I  need  help.  I  am  in  danger,  I  need  succor.  I  am 
in  weakness,  I  need  strength.     My  business  is  in 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  123 

difficulties  and  seems  to  be  going  wrong,  and  I  need 
my  Father's  wisdom  in  my  business.  And  so  with 
any  need  —  whatever  it  may  be.  That  is  the  teach- 
ing of  this  model  prayer.  First,  worship.  God 
tranquilizes  our  souls  in  the  presence  of  our  Father. 
Then  the  coming  kingdom.  If  the  coming  of  that 
kingdom  means  that  He  has  got  to  say  "No"  to  me 
this  day,  well,  then,  still  I  must  pray, 

"Thy  kingdom  come."  —  Luke  11:2 

and  then  my  need:  "Meet  it,  Lord!"  That  is 
the  essential  teaching  of  the  Lord's  Prayer. 

Lastly,  does  not  our  Lord  teach  us  that  prayer 
should  be  largely  intercessory?  How  gently  He 
teaches!  He  tells  us  this  parable  about  the  man 
who  goes  to  his  friend  and  tells  him  of  the  need  of 
his  other  friend  who  is  on  a  journey. 

"And  he  said  unto  them,  Which  of  you  shall  have  a  friend, 
and  shall  go  unto  him  at  midnight,  and  say  unto  him, 
Friend,  lend  me  three  loaves; 

For  a  friend  of  mine  in  his  journey  is  come  to  me,  and 
I  have  nothing  to  set  before  him? 

And  he  from  within  shall  answer  and  say,  Trouble  me 
not:  the  door  is  now  shut,  and  my  children  are  with  me 
in  bed ;  I  cannot  rise  and  give  thee. 
I  say  unto  you,  Though  he  will  not  rise  and  give  him, 
because  he  is  his  friend,  yet  because  of  his  importunity 
he  will  rise  and  give  him  as  many  as  he  needeth." 

—  Luke  11:5-8 

Pray  for  others.  Andrew  Murray  has  a  phrase: 
"Trust  for  yourself,  Pray  for  others."    Do  you  sup- 


L£4  IN  MANY   PULPITS 

pose  that  when  Christ  prayed  all  night  He  was  going 
over  His  own  case  with  His  heavenly  Father?  I 
think  He  may  have  spent  two  hours  on  Peter  and 
half  an  hour  on  John,  and  so  on.  I  think  He  was 
praying  for  Israel.  I  think  He  was  praying  for  the 
whole  round  world.  Intercessory  prayer!  And  the 
blessed  simplicity  of  it  all!  A  friend  of  yours  comes 
to  you  and  needs  something  that  you  have  not,  and 
you  go  to  your  Father  and  get  it  for  him.  Pray. 
Pray.  That  is  what  our  Lord,  in  effect,  says,  "Pray." 
Get  a  need  on  your  heart  and  then  go  to  your  Father 
about  it.  That  is  prayer.  Stay  with  Him  until  you 
have  an  answer. 

"And  I  say  unto  you,  Ask,  and  it  shall  be  given  you;  seek 
and  ye  shall  find ;  knock,  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you. 
For  every  one  that  asketh  receiveth,  and  he  that  seeketh 
findeth;    and  to  him  that  knocketh  it  shall  be  opened." 

—  Luke  ii :g,  10 

That  is  prayer. 


WHO   IS   MY   NEIGHBOR? 


WHO    IS    MY   NEIGHBOR? 

"But  he,  willing  to  justify  himself,  said  unto  Jesus,  And  who 
is  my  neighbor?"  —  Luke  io:2Q 

A  LAWYER,  a  teacher  of  Biblical  law,  one  whose 
office  it  was  to  read  and  expound  the  Scriptures 
to  the  people,  stood  up  to  question  Jesus.  He 
addressed  him  respectfully,  calling  him  "Master," 
but  he  was  not  a  sincere  inquirer,  for  we  are  told  that 
his  question  was  intended  to  "tempt"  the  Lord. 
Either  this  lawyer  supposed  that  he  could  worst  Jesus 
in  an  argument,  or  he  hoped  to 

"catch  him  in  his  words"  —  Mark   12:13 

to  draw  out  of  Him  some  expression  which  might 
be  turned  against  Him  with  the  people.  But  what- 
ever his  motive,  his  question  was  certainly  one  of 
tremendous  importance: 

"Master,  what  shall  I  do  to  inherit  eternal  life?" 

—  Luke  10:25 

The  question  classifies  the  man.  He  was  a  legalist, 
a  man  who  conceives  of  eternal  life  as  an  inheritance 
—  something  to  be  received  at  some  future  time,  as 
the  fitting  reward  of  the  good,  never  dreaming  that 

127 


128  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

it  is  God's  free  and  immediate  gift  to  the  hopelessly 
bad.  He  was  a  type  of  millions  who,  after  twenty 
centuries,  do  not  yet  understand  the  gospel.  Christ, 
taking  him  upon  his  own  ground  of  doing,  puts 
before  him  Gods  only  standard  —  the  law. 

"What  is  written  in  the  law?    How  readest  thou?" 

—  Luke  10:26 

The  question  thus  turned  upon  himself,  the  teacher 
of  the  law  answers  in  the  words  of  Scripture: 

"Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and 
with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  strength,  and  with  all 
thy  mind;  and  thy  neighbour  as  thyself."  —  Luke  10:27 

From  the  point  of  view  of  salvation  by  goodness, 
this  answer  is  perfect,  and  Jesus  commends  it: 

"Thou  hast  answered  right!"  —  Luke  10:28 

But  Jesus  did  not  stop  there.  Men  are  not  saved, 
even  under  grace,  by  right  answers  to  questions.  The 
scribes  could  tell  the  wise  men  where  the  Messiah 
should  be  born,  but  their  own  feet  never  trod  one 
step  of  the  road  that  led  from  Jerusalem  down  to  the 
humble  manger  at  Bethlehem.  An  orthodox  creed, 
desirable  as  it  is  to  have  creeds  orthodox,  never 
saved  a  soul.  We  may  believe  implicitly  every  word 
of  the  soundest  confession  of  faith  ever  written,  and 
be  lost.  But  no  soul  ever  trusted  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  though  ever  so  feebly,  and  was  lost.    Christ 


WITH   DR.   C.   I.  SCOFIELD  129 

therefore  adds  one  short  sentence  to  his  commenda- 
tion of  the  lawyer's  reply.  A  very  little  addition  it 
is,  but  it  seems  to  produce  a  profound  effect: 

"This  do,  and  thou  shalt  live."  —  Luke  10:28 

Law  is  something  to  be  done,  not  talked  about.  If 
a  soul  seeks  salvation  by  good  works,  the  works  must 
be  performed.  And  this  is  why  the  law  can  only  con- 
demn; for,  besides  Jesus,  no  man  ever  kept  the  law. 
It  is  manifest  that  the  lawyer  felt  the  force  of 
Christ's  quiet  words,  for  his  next  question  betrayed 
his  uneasiness.  He  completely  abandoned  the  com- 
mand about  loving  God  with  all  his  heart ,  soul, 
strength  and  mind,  and  was  seriously  doubtful 
whether  he  had  loved  his  neighbor  as  himself.  Had  he 
been  as  anxious  for  his  neighbor's  health  and  temporal 
prosperity  and  good  name  as  for  his  own?  Certainly 
not,  and  yet  this  was  the  standard  of  the  law.  And 
this  must  be  a  love  of  deeds,  not  merely  of  words,  nor 
of  sentiment.  He  must  have  labored  as  diligently 
to  clothe  and  feed  his  needy  neighbor  and  to  educate 
his  neighbor's  children  and  provide  him  and  them 
with  rational  and  innocent  pleasures  as  to  procure 
these  things  for  himself  and  his  own.  Two  roads 
now  lay  open  before  him.  He  might  fall  at  Jesus' 
feet  confessing  his  sinfulness  and  plead  for  mercy,  or 
he  might  attempt  to  justify  himself.  He  chose  the 
latter,  making  the  fatal  mistake  of  leaving  God 
out  of  his  scheme. 

"But  he,  willing  to  justify  himself,  said  unto  Jesus,  And 
who  is  my  neighbour? 


180  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

And    JeSUS   answering     said,   A    certain    man    went   down 

from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho,  and  fell  among  thieves,  which 
Stripped  him  of  his  raiment,  and  wounded  him  and  de- 
parted, leaving  him  half  dead. 

And  by  chanee  there  eame  down  a  certain  priest  that 
way:  and  when  he  saw  him,  he  passed  by  on  the  other 
side. 

And  likewise  a  Levite,  when  he  was  at  the  place,  came 
and  looked  on  him,  and  passed  by  on  the  other  side. 
But  a  certain  Samaritan,  as  he  journeyed,  came  where 
he  was:  and  when  he  saw  him,  he  had  compassion  on  him, 
And  went  to  him,  and  bound  up  his  wounds,  pouring  in 
oil  and  wine,  and  set  him  on  his  own  beast,  and  brought 
him  to  an  inn,  and  took  care  of  him. 
And  on  the  morrow  when  he  departed,  he  took  out  two 
pence,  and  gave  them  to  the  host,  and  said  unto  him,  Take 
care  of  him;  and  whatsoever  thou  spendest  more,  when  I 
come  again,  I  will  repay  thee."  —  Luke  10:29-35 

What  words!  They  are  nineteen  hundred  years  old 
now,  but  custom  has  never  staled  their  sweetness. 
They  strike  a  note  never  before  heard  in  ethics  — 
the  note  of  universality;  of  the  solidarity  of  hu- 
manity. What  a  picture  to  unroll  to  this  proud, 
self-satisfied  moralist!  He  had  imagined  that  his 
neighbors  were  his  wife  and  children,  his  dependent 
relatives,  his  associates  in  business,  his  employer  and 
social  friends.  The  "neighborhood"  to  him  had  been 
his  own  immediate  environment.  He  had  been  hon- 
est, generous  and  kindly;  scrupulous  in  the  discharge 
of  every  obligation,  a  constant  and  zealous  attendant 
upon  his  own  synagogue  services;  conscientious  in 
the  performance  of  all  the  observances  of  respectable, 
moral,  well-dressed,  well-to-do  religionists.  He  had 
what  he  conceived  to  be  a  righteous  hatred  of  all 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  131 

Samaritans,  a  prosperous  man's  contempt  for  all 
shiftless,  improvident  people,  and  a  moral,  law- 
abiding  man's  contempt  for  "sinners,"  —  criminals. 
These  had  been  his  ideas.  But  he  looked  down  the 
Jericho  road  and  saw  a  nameless  wretch,  stripped  of 
his  clothing,  lying  by  the  wayside  in  a  half-dying 
state.  Farther  along  the  road  he  saw  the  receding 
back  of  a  priest  whom  he  venerated,  and  of  a  Levite 
whom  he  respected.  Evidently  they  had  considered 
that  the  man  by  the  side  of  the  road  had  no  claims 
upon  them.  And  then  he  saw  a  hated  Samaritan, 
kneeling  by  the  side,  and  with  his  own  hands  minister- 
ing to  the  needs  of  the  bleeding  victim  of  the  thieves, 
and  upon  his  own  beast  carrying  him  to  a  place  of  rest 
and  security. 

I  do  not  know  that  it  was  so,  but  I  feel  sure  there 
was  a  pause,  perhaps  a  long  one,  after  the  last  words 
of  that  parable.  The  lawyer  saw  what  was  com- 
ing.   This,  then,  was  the  answer  to  his  question: 

"Who  is  my  neighbour?"  —  Luke  io:2Q 

Jesus  meant  to  say  that  the  bleeding  wretch  down 
there  among  the  jagged  rocks  and  under  the  hot  sun 
of  the  cursed  Jericho  road,  was  "  his  neighbour."  The 
man  was  not  his  relation,  he  was  not  a  member  of 
his  synagogue,  was  not  even  of  the  same  race.  He 
might  be  a  very  bad  man,  he  might  have  brought 
on  his  misfortunes  by  his  own  carelessness  or  im- 
providence. It  did  not  appear  that  the  Samaritan 
inquired  into  these  things,  even.    This  also  was  clear 


188  IN   MANY    PULPITS 

to  the  Lawyer:  The  Jericho  road  did  not  end  at 
Jericho;  it  passed  the  frontier  of  Judea,  it  went  into 
all  the  world.  And  by  the  side  of  it  lay  all  the  help- 
less, all  the  suffering,  all  the  ignorant,  all  the  de- 
graded, all  the  vile.  That  awful  Jericho  road  ran 
in  front  of  every  leper's  hut,  of  every  criminal's 
dungeon,  every  orphan's  cheerless  home.  By  its  side 
he  saw  the  drunkard  and  the  harlot,  and  it  did  not 
matter  that  the  drunkard  might  be  a  king,  or  the 
harlot  a  queen.  The  Jericho  road  was  lined  with 
palaces  as  well  as  hovels.  Wherever  in  this  world 
sin  had  brought  shame  or  suffering  or  sorrow,  there 
ran  the  Jericho  road. 

And  the  meaning  of  this  Galilean  was,  that  all 
of  these  sufferers  were  his  "neighbors."  If  that 
were  so,  then  the  meaning  of  the  law  must  be  that  he, 
if  he  expected  to  win  heaven  on  the  ground  of  merit 
— of  doing — must  love  all  these  miserables!  He  must 
feel  toward  each  sufferer  precisely  as  he  would  feel 
toward  himself,  if  in  like  case?  Precisely.  That 
is  the  law.  And  an  instant's  reflection  convinces 
that  it  must  be  so.  For  God  loves  them  all  —  loves 
them  so  unutterably  that 

"he  gave  his  only  begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth 
in  him  should  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life." 

—  John  3:16 

If  I  demand  entrance  to  heaven  on  the  ground  of 
character,  it  must  be  heavenly  character.  To  love 
God  with  our  whole  soul,  and  to  love  our  neighbor 
as  ourselves,  are  requirements  most  obviously  right- 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  133 

eous,  for  God  is  entirely  lovable,  and  our  neighbors 
are  at  least  as  lovable  as  ourselves.  But  who  can 
stand  the  test?  And  lest  there  should  be  any  doubt 
in  that  lawyer's  mind,  or  in  ours,  Jesus  put  one  last 
question: 

"Which  now  of  these  three,  thinkest  thou,  was  neighbour 
unto  him  that  fell  among  the  thieves? 
And  he  said,  He  that  shewed  mercy  on  him." 

—  Luke  10:36,  37 

It  was  the  one  answer  possible. 

It  is  no  part  of  my  purpose  to  enter  into  the  detail 
of  the  symbolism  of  this  beautiful  parable.  Let 
us  look,  rather,  at  the  great  outstanding  fact.  Jesus 
is  the  Good  Samaritan.  The  law  tells  man  what  he 
ought  to  do,  but  can  not  give  him  power  to  do  it. 
It  shows  him  what  he  ought  to  be,  and  by  contrast, 
what  he  is  not.  The  priest  could  have  presented 
an  offering  for  the  man  by  the  wayside,  if  only  the 
man  could  have  gone  up  to  Jerusalem.  But  he  was 
half  dead  and  could  not  stir.  There  is  no  remedy 
in  the  Mosaic  economy  for  a  bleeding,  helpless  wretch 
by  the  wayside.  Neither  can  the  law  make  the 
priests  love  that  wretch.  Each  of  us  is  the  man  that 
fell  among  thieves;  we  all  travel  the  Jericho  road, 
and  the  nameless  Samaritan,  bending  over  us  with  the 
oil  of  healing  and  the  wine  of  joy,  brings  us  grace, 
not  law. 

And  in  this  grace,  see  three  wonderful  elements. 
First,  God's  grace  in  Christ  Jesus  comes  to  the  sinner 
where  he  is.    We  have  not  to  ascend  into  heaven  to 


184  IN    MANY    1TLPITS 

bring  Christ  down;  He  is  here  to  seek  and  to  save 
us.  and  He  comes  all  the  way.  The  sinner  has  not 
even  to  lift  himself  upon  his  elbow.  Nay,  he  has  not 
to  lift  so  much  as  his  eyes  to  heaven.  The  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  comes;  He  comes  to  the  self-righteous 
Pharisee  in  the  pew  and  the  drunkard  in  the  gutter, 
—  Christ,  with  tender  compassion,  bends  over  him 
just  there  in  the  mire  where  he  is.  Second,  God's 
grace  in  Christ  Jesus  ministers  salvation  to  the  sin- 
ner just  as  he  is.  If  he  has  faith  to  turn  from  his 
sins  and  to  receive  salvation  as  a  free  gift,  the  Good 
Samaritan,  bending  so  patiently  over  him,  will  impart 
eternal  life,  through  the  new  birth,  at  once.  And  this 
Good  Samaritan,  Christ  Jesus,  keeps  those  whom  He 
saves.  The  Samaritan  sets  men  upon  his  own  beast. 
Just  as  the  shepherd  in  the  parable,  when  he  finds 
the  sheep  that  was  lost,  does  not  drive  it  to  the  fold 
with  blows,  nor  even  lead  it  thither,  but 

"layeth  it  on  his  shoulders,"  —  Luke  15:5 

so  does  God's  grace  in  Christ  Jesus  finish  the  cure 
it  begins.  Even  at  the  inn,  the  Good  Samaritan  pays 
all  the  charge. 


THE   GOD   OF  JACOB 


THE   GOD   OF  JACOB 

"Happy  is  he  that  hath  the  God  of  Jacob"  —  Psalms  146:5 

"Moreover  he  said,  I  am  ...  the  God  of  Jacob." 

—  Exodus  3:6 

LET  us  consider,  first  of  all,  the  tremendous 
significance  of  the  fact  that  such  a  Being  as 
Jehovah  will  call  himself  the  God  of  Jacob.  We 
know  who  Jacob  was.  He  was  the  grandson  of 
Abraham.  We  know  more  than  that;  we  know 
what  Jacob  was.  Jacob  was  a  crafty,  grasping  and 
unscrupulous  man,  a  man  of  the  world;  a  man  with 
an  intense  desire  for  the  things  of  the  world;  and  a 
peculiarly  ignoble  and  base  man  in  his  method  of 
attaining  his  desires ;  as  we  should  say,  a  thoroughly 
dishonorable  man.  He  was  a  man,  therefore,  for 
whom,  naturally  and  rightly,  we  have  feelings  only 
of  reprobation  and  condemnation. 

Instinctively,  we  make  excuses  for  those  sins  and 
faults  of  character  which  spring  out  of  impulse,  and 
have  their  occasion  in  a  passing  momentary  tempta- 
tion. We  are  acquainted  with  ourselves  well  enough, 
at  least,  to  know  that  we  also  are  compassed  with 
infirmity,  and  that  we  too  are  constantly  falling 
before  the  power  of  temptation.     Therefore,  when 

137 


188  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

we  hoar  o\  some  man  who  lias  fallen  into  sin  as  the 
result  oi  some  Midden  assailment  of  temptation, 
which  finds  him  weak  because  unwatchful,  there 
arises  in  our  hearts  —  if  they  are  noble  hearts 
—  a  feeling  of  compassion  and  pity.  We  are  quite 
prepared  to  take  our  place  by  his  side  for  a  moment, 
and  to  confess  that  we  too,  under  like  circumstances, 
might  have  fallen  as  he  fell. 

But  for  another  kind  of  character  we  have  scant 
pity.  There  is  a  cold,  calculating,  crafty,  base, 
avaricious,  grasping,  subterranean  type  of  character 
for  which  we  feel  an  aversion  —  a  settled  aversion 
and  dislike  —  without  the  thought  of  pity.  We  do 
not  go  very  far  in  our  experience  of  character  before 
we  find  out,  that  while  the  outbreaking  sinner,  of 
strong  passions  and  weak  power  of  resistance,  may 
be  won  —  perhaps  easily  —  by  the  engine  of  love  to 
better  things,  the  cold,  crafty,  scheming  character 
is  one  almost  impossible  to  move  towards  anything 
high  and  noble.  Now  Jacob  was  all  of  this.  He 
mingled  it  with  his  faith.  There  was  in  him  an  ele- 
ment of  faith,  genuine  so  far  as  it  went,  which  en- 
abled him  to  lay  hold  of  a  promise  of  God,  but  with 
it  there  was  also  this  other  thing,  which  led  him  to 
seek  the  attainment  of  the  thing  promised  by  un- 
scrupulous and  unworthy  means.  That  was  Jacob. 
A  typical  mean  man,  yet  God  calls  Himself 

"the  God  of  Jacob."  —  Exodus  3:6 

Now  think  of  God.    How  shall  we  speak  of  Him? 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  139 

He  is  absolutely  holy  —  a  holiness  that  makes  sin 
hateful  to  Him,  so  that  sin  is  the  one  thing  that  He 
(perfect  love)  hates  with  a  perfect  hatred.  And 
this  is  what  it  comes  to,  this  text  of  ours.  It  links 
together  absolute  perfection,  untainted  and  untaint- 
able  holiness,  and  the  meanest  natural  character  de- 
scribed in  all  the  Bible  —  Jacob.  Almighty  God  takes 
his  stand  as  it  were,  by  the  side  of  that  mean  scamp, 
and  says  to  all  the  world  —  and  not  at  all  apologet- 
ically —  "I  am  his  God," 

"I  am  .  .  .  the  God  of  Jacob."  —  Exodus  3:6 

I  have  no  doubt  that  Abraham  would  have  been 
ashamed  of  that  grandson  of  his.  Though  not  by 
any  means  a  perfect  character  himself,  there  was  in 
Abraham  a  largeness,  nobility  and  breadth  of  char- 
acter, that  would  have  made  the  grasping  meanness 
and  unscrupulousness  of  his  grandson  peculiarly  hate- 
ful and  distasteful  to  him.  We  may  believe,  it 
would  have  been  with  no  little  shame  that  Abraham 
would  have  said:  "Yes,  he  is  my  grandson."  But 
Almighty  God,  without  apology  and  without  shame, 
says:    "I  am  his  God." 

"I  am  .  .  .  the  God  of  Jacob."  —  Exodus  3:6 

Now  I  ask  you  —  you  believers,  who  like  Jacob 
have  true  faith,  like  Jacob  have  grievous  faults  —  to 
look  with  me  for  a  little  time  at  this  thought  of  the 
revelation  of  the  Holy  Jehovah  as  one  who  takes  up 
the  Jacobs  of  this  world  and  avouches  Himself  to  be 


140  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

their  God;  gets  alongside  of  them  and  does  not  dis- 
own them;  stands  between  them  and  the  doom  they 
deserve,  and  transforms  and  glorifies  them.  First  of 
all,  consider  what  a  hope  it  opens  to  a  world  full 
of  sinners. 

"I  am  ...  the  God  of  Jacob."  —  Exodus  3:6 

Ah!  then  the  most  discouraged  may  say:  "There  may 
be  room  in  God's  heart  for  mc"  It  is  true,  we  may 
turn  this  another  way.  Some  may  say:  "I  thank 
you  for  nothing,  —  I  am  no  Jacob.  Jacob  went  in  by 
the  window  always  when  the  door  was  wide  open. 
I  do  not;  I  go  in  by  the  door,  never  by  the  window." 
Well,  all  honor  to  them.  It  is  commendable  in  them. 
But  if  they  are  not  Jacobs,  they  are  some  other  kind 
of  sinners.  They,  like  all  of  us,  need  a  God,  who  will 
come  down  perhaps  a  little  this  side  of  Jacob. 

So  there  is  in  this  thing  a  mighty  hope.  Why 
cannot  sinners  get  hold  of  it?  Cannot  they  realize 
that  this  God  against  whom  we  all  have  sinned  and 
who  cannot  possibly  approve  perhaps  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  that  which  makes  up  the  history  of 
our  lives,  has  come  down  in  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ  and  said  before  the  universe,  "I,  the  God  of 
Jacob,  am  your  God:  My  blood  atones  for  your  sins; 
My  shield  covers  you." 

"Who  shall  lay  anything  to  the  charge  of  God's  elect?" 

—  Romans  8:33 

Do  you  not  see  the  point  of  encouragement?     If  we 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  141 

really  want  a  sinner's  God,  we  have  Him  in  the 
God  of  Jacob.  The  difficulty  comes  in  just  there. 
How  we  do  shrink  from  having  this 

"sentence  of  death  in  ourselves,  that  we  should  not  trust  in 
ourselves,"  —  //  Corinthians  i:g 

Oh,  how  we  would  like  to  get  up  a  little  higher  and 
lay  hold  of  the  God  of  Daniel,  or  of  Abraham,  or  the 
God  of  Paul,  but  not  the  God  of  Jacob!  Beloved, 
as  sinners  it  is  Jacob's  God  we  need,  the  God  who  let 
down  the  ladder  to  rascally  Jacob  as  he,  fugitive 
from  justice,  lay  dreaming  at  Bethel. 

Now,  singularly  enough,  this  way  God  has  of  tak- 
ing up  with  all  sorts  of  low  company  is  exceedingly 
offensive  to  a  great  many  goodish  people.  They  don't 
like  it;  they  want  Him  to  be  more  respectable.  One 
great  objection  to  the  reception  of  Jesus  Christ  when 
here  upon  earth,  the  charge  made  against  Him  by 
the  respectable  people,  was  that  He  associated  with 
exceedingly  low-down  people : 

"This  man  receiveth  sinners,"  —  Luke  15:2 

Bad  enough  indeed,  but  there  was  something  worse: 

"and  eateth  with  them."  —  Luke  15:2 

I  can  well  imagine  with  what  a  snap  that  would  come 
from  the  mouth  of  a  Pharisee.  "Certainly,"  he 
would  say,  "he  is  a  very  compassionate  being,  and 
perhaps  we  could  get  over  his  tender  way  with  re- 


L48  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

pentant,  believing  sinners,  but  he  goes  beyond  the 
bounds  of  reasonable  sympathy  and  actually  eats 
with  them." 

The  other  day,  in  the  city  of  Toronto,  I  saw  in  a 
window  a  picture,  underneath  which  were  the  words: 
"The  Doctor."  It  was  a  simple  picture,  but  it  moved 
me  deeply.  It  represented  the  interior  of  a  poor 
dwelling  —  a  mere  hut.  Upon  a  tumbled  pallet-bed 
lay  a  sick  child.  By  the  side  of  the  bed  sat  the 
doctor  with  a  strong,  thoughtful,  intellectual  face, 
his  eyes  fixed  earnestly  and  benevolently  upon  the 
fevered  child.  I  stood  a  long  time  by  that  window 
and  looked  at  that  picture.  I  had  a  good  many 
thoughts  —  the  scene  stirred  me.  I  thought,  of 
course,  upon  the  very  surface  of  it,  what  a  noble  pro- 
fession is  that  of  medicine.  I  thought  what  a  grand 
and  knightly  thing  it  is,  that  this  man,  schooled  in  all 
that  may  be  known  of  the  human  body  and  of  the 
remedies  with  which  God  has  strewn  this  earth  for 
the  healing  of  that  body,  should  be  so  interested  in 
that  poor  sick  child.  There  was  nothing  in  that 
room  the  doctor  wanted.  There  was  no  money  there 
for  him  —  there  was  no  comfort  there  for  him.  No, 
but  that  which  was  writing  deep  lines  of  thought 
upon  his  noble  face  was  the  suffering  of  that  child  — 
the  child  that  was  nothing  to  him,  except  as  its 
racked  little  body  was  full  of  pain.  That  pain  cried 
out  to  the  doctor,  cried  out  to  the  physician  in  him, 
and  he  was  there  with  all  the  resources  of  his  skill 
and  of  his  great  informed  brain,  the  servant  of  that 
little  heap  of  anguish. 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  143 

Did  that  doctor,  or  does  any  doctor,  approve  of 
the  pain  which  he  sees  in  suffering  humanity?  Does 
he  make  light  of  it  or  condone  it?  Why,  he  hates 
it.  His  very  business  is  to  banish  it  and  bring  back 
vigor  and  health  to  the  frame  again.  He  is  happy 
once  more  when  he  has  triumphed  over  the  disease 
and  put  it  away.  The  whole  glory  of  his  knight- 
hood comes  in  just  there. 

Then  my  thoughts  went  away  to  God  —  to  the 
God  of  Jacob.  When  I  see  Almighty  God  come  down 
to  the  side  of  a  scheming  scamp  like  that  man  Jacob 
and  say  to  the  whole  universe:  "Hands  off!  this  is 
my  man.  I  am  his  God"  —  I  know  it  is  the  very 
wrong  in  him  that  stirs  the  God-heart  and  brings 
Him  down  there.  He  cannot  bear  not  to  be  there 
because  the  poor  man,  though  such  a  scamp,  trusts 
Him.  He  must  get  by  his  side.  The  divine  compul- 
sion of  love  brings  God  there  to  say  in  the  face  of  all 
the  little  Pharisees  on  earth:  "Yes.  I  am  his  God," 
and  He  gets  hold  of  that  scamp  remedially. 

Let  us  realize  this:  it  is  our  guilt,  it  is  our  moral 
disease  that  brings  Jacob's  God  down  here  savingly, 
by  the  blood  of  the  cross  —  helpfully,  remedially. 
Have  you  ever  thought  that  a  physician  comes  to 
have  a  far  deeper  interest  in  sick  people  than  in  those 
who  are  in  health?  It  is  true.  I  have  often  thought 
of  my  own  doctor  in  this  city.  I  meet  him  many 
times  when  I  am  in  perfect  health  —  and  I  never 
meet  him  that  I  do  not  get  a  brother's  greeting  from 
him  —  but  let  something  go  wrong  with  this  body  of 
mine,  let  a  call  bring  him  to  my  bedside,  and  he  is 


L44  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

all  interested  in  me  at  once.  I  would  not  say  that  he 
loves  me  more  then,  but  the  fact  that  something  has 
gone  wrong  with  me  stirs  the  physician  and  he  is  more 
interested  in  me  than  when  I  am  in  health. 

Let  us  not  be  surprised  then,  dear  friends,  when 
we  find  the  Lord  Jesus  saying: 

"I  came  not  to  call  the  righteous,  but  sinners  to  repentance." 

—  Luke  5:32 

It  is  just  His  way  of  saying:  "Stand  aside,  good, 
correct  people  who  feel  no  need  of  me  —  let  me  get 
to  these  Jacobs  and  Rahabs  and  Peters  and  Pauls 
who  do  need  me."  That  is  the  God  of  Jacob.  Are  we 
not  now  ready  to  see  what  David  means  when  he 
says: 

"  Happy  is  he  that  hath  the  God  of  Jacob"  —  Psalms  146:5 

There  is  nothing  more  intensely  interesting  in  Scrip- 
ture than  God's  dealing  with  that  man  Jacob.  Take 
up  your  Bibles  and  go  through  the  history  of  Jacob 
with  that  clew,  that  God  is  dealing  with  him  rem- 
edially;  that  He  has  avouched  Himself  to  be  that 
man's  God  because  the  man  has  laid  hold  on  Him  by 
faith,  although  it  may  be  a  very  imperfect  faith.  You 
will  find  that  dealing  to  fall  into  three  parts.  First 
of  all,  God  lets  Jacob  learn  by  bitter  experience,  the 
deep  truth  of  the  words: 

"Whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap." 

—  Galatians  6:7 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  145 

Think  of  the  trouble  Jacob  had!  Years  afterwards, 
when  he  was  right  with  God,  he  said  in  the  presence 
of  a  heathen  king: 

"few  and  evil  have  the  days  of  the  years  of  my  life  been," 

—  Genesis  47  :g 

God  taught  that  scheming  man  that  all  his  craft  and 
skill  would  bring  him  deeper  and  deeper  into  sorrow, 
and  Jacob  had  to  drink  the  cup  his  own  hands  had 
mixed.  It  was  one  trick  bringing  him  into  trouble 
and  another  one  plunging  him  deeper  into  it,  until 
God  at  last  intervenes.  There  had  been  enough  of 
that  remedy  and  God  orders  him  back  to  Bethel. 
Then  He  began  to  touch  Jacob's  heart  by  mighty 
deliverances,  and  at  last  they  two  came  together  in 
one  final  wrestle  and  God  was  too  strong  for  him, 
and  the  man  in  darkness,  feeling  at  last  his  utter 
weakness,  exclaims,  clinging  to  God: 

"I  will  not  let  thee  go,  except  thou  bless  me." 

—  Genesis  32:26 

And  then  Jacob  hears  those  words  of  such  infinite 
meaning: 

"Thy  name  shall  be  called  no  more  Jacob,  but  Israel:  for 
as  a  prince  hast  thou  power  with  God  and  with  men,  and 
hast  prevailed."  —  Genesis  32:28 

And  presently  we  see  him  who  was  aforetime  an 
ignoble  trickster,  now  a  patriarch,  and  at  peace  with 
God,  stand  before  the  mighty  Rameses  and  bless  him. 


146  IN    MANY   PULPITS 

Friends,  with  this  clew,  the  whole  Bible  becomes 
a  clinic!  Every  diversity  of  defect  comes  into  view 
and  is  cured.  Look  at  God's  dealing  with  self- 
righteous  Job,  and  how,  purified  by  his  suffering, 
Job  comes  out  into  the  place  where  he  too  can  bless 
others.  I  like  to  think  of  God's  dealing  with  Peter, 
who  was  so  impulsive  and  rash  and  headstrong  and 
full  of  self-confidence.  Do  you  remember  the  first 
interview  that  Jesus  had  with  Peter?    He  said: 

"Thou  art  Simon  the  son  of  Jona;    thou  shalt  be  called 
Cephas,  which  is  by  interpretation,  A  stone."  —  John  1:42 

"I  take  you  now,  a  poor  lump  of  flesh,  full  of  im- 
pulse, partly  good  and  partly  evil,  but  when  I  have 
done  with  you,  Peter,  you  shall  be  a  rock  man  and 
not  a  lump  of  flesh."  And  so  He  takes  Paul  —  "the 
tiger  of  the  Sanhedrin"  —  and  makes  him  the  writer 
of  the  13th  Chapter  of  I  Corinthians,  the  apothe- 
osis of  love.  Dear  friends,  God  does  not  approve 
bad  characters  in  His  children. 

Lastly,  we  shall  miss  very  much  of  this  thought 
of  Jehovah  as  the  God  of  Jacob,  if  we  forget  that 
another  stood  before  Jacob  in  the  line  of  privilege. 
That  was  Esau.  But  God  is  never  called  "the  God 
of  Esau."  In  all  the  outlines  of  natural  character, 
Esau  was  a  kindlier  and  nobler  man  than  Jacob. 
What  was  the  difference?  How  does  it  happen  that 
God  is  never  called  the  God  of  Esau,  but  is  called 
the  God  of  the  meaner  brother,  Jacob?  Because 
Esau   despised    his    birthright.      He   preferred    the 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  147 

satisfaction  of  a  passing  appetite  to  that  other  thing 
which  seemed  desirable,  but  so  far  off.  Esau  sold 
his  opportunity  for  a  mess  of  pottage,  and  Jacob, 
who,  mean  as  he  was,  believed  in  the  birthright  and 
the  God  of  the  birthright,  bought  it.  Jacob,  "sup- 
planter"  as  he  was,  trusted  and  believed.  Esau,  a 
better  man,  distrusted  and  disbelieved. 

My  friends,  how  is  it  with  you?  Have  you  the 
God  of  Jacob,  who  takes  up  sinners  as  they  are, 
saves  them  where  they  are,  and  then  transforms  the 
Jacobs  into  Israels?  Is  this  God  of  Jacob  who  at 
last  brings  us  into  perfect  conformity  to  the  perfect 
One  —  your  God?  If  He  is,  I  congratulate  you. 
Poor  creature  as  I  am,  I  felicitate  myself  that  Jacob's 
God  is  my  God.  But  if  He  is  not  your  God,  will  you 
not  have  Him  on  even  terms  with  Jacob?  Will  you 
not  have  Him  just  by  faith? 

"Happy  is  he  that  hath  the  God  of  Jacob."  —  Psalms  146:5 


SONG   OR   ECHO — WHICH? 


SONG   OR   ECHO— WHICH? 

"Sayest  thou  this  thing  of  thyself,  or  did  others  tell  it  thee  of 
me?"  —  John  18:34 

PONTIUS  PILATE,  in  many  respects  one  of 
the  most  interesting  men  of  human  history,  has 
just  asked  Jesus  Christ  a  question. 

"Art  thou  the  King  of  the  Jews?"  —  John  18:33 
The  text  is  Christ's  answer: 

"Sayest  thou  this  thing  of  thyself,  or  did  others  tell  it  thee 
of  me?"  —  John  18:34 

"Did  the  question  come  out  of  your  soul,  or  out  of 
your  mouth?  Have  you  caught  up  the  phrase,  'King 
of  the  Jews,'  from  the  man  in  the  street,  or  are  you 
really  wondering  who  may  be  the  rightful  occupant 
of  a  throne  of  which  you  know  yourself  to  be  a 
mere  usurper?  Above  all,  are  you  prepared  to  form 
real  convictions,  and  to  act  on  them  at  any  cost? 
Is  this  a  song, 

"Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David:"  —  Matthew  21:9 

which  is  struggling  for  utterance,  or  are  you  a  mere 
echo  man?" 

151 


l.v:  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

Something  Like  this  I  think  was  in  our  Lord's  mind. 
Jesus  Christ  has  no  answer  for  academic  questions. 
When  the  disciples  asked  Him, 

"Lord,  are  there  few  that  be  saved?"  —  Luke  13:23 

He  answered, 

"Strive  to  enter  in  at  the  strait  gate."  —  Luke  13:24 

A  great  many  men  are  interested  in  purely  curious  or 
speculative  questions  in  the  sphere  of  religion  who 
have  scant  interest  in  the  "strait  gate."  Christ  is 
interested  in  the  gate,  and  in  persuading  men  to  enter 
it.  It  is  this  insistence  of  Christ  on  the  actual,  the 
ascertainable,  the  essential,  which  has  always  at- 
tracted strong,  virile,  authentic  souls.  He  is  no  phil- 
osopher with  a  theory,  no  attitudinizer  with  a  pretty 
ceremonial,  but  the  Truth  and  the  Light. 

And  there  is  nothing  so  pitiless  as  light.  It  will 
have  the  facts.  Afterward  mercy  comes,  but  facts 
first.  Mercy  is  not  a  divine  expedient  which  ignores 
or  affects  not  to  see  the  slum,  but  destroys  and  then 
rebuilds  it;  mercy  takes  note  of  the  miasma  and 
then  drains  the  swamp.  When  Pilate  asked  his  care- 
less hearsay  questions,  Christ  was  on  His  way  to  a 
very  real  cross,  and  had  no  mind  for  mere  word- 
play and  phrase-mongering.  That  cross,  within  an 
hour,  was  to  become  the  central  fact  in  the  history 
of  the  world ;  from  it  was  to  date  a  new  ethic,  a  new 
glory  on  human  life,  a  new-born  measure  of  love,  and 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  153 

by  it  every  soul  thereafter  born  into  this  world  must 
at  last  be  judged.  It  was  no  time  for  unrealities 
and  empty  phrases.  The  cause  of  Christ  in  the 
world  today  is  weakened  because  His  church  —  by 
which  word  I  always  mean  the  whole  body  of  be- 
lievers on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  not  a  sect  or 
denomination  —  has  turned  aside  to  give  elaborate 
answers  to  all  kinds  of  speculative  questions,  and  so 
to  create  and  maintain  a  hearsay  and  traditional 
faith. 

"Sayest  thou  this  thing  of  thyself,  or  did  others  tell  it  thee 
of  me?"  —  John  18:34 

I  want  to  press  Christ's  question  first  of  all  upon 
my  unbelieving  readers.  Do  not  imagine  that  all  of 
the  traditional,  hearsay,  second-hand  thinking  on  reli- 
gious matters  is  to  be  found  amongst  church  members. 
On  the  contrary.  The  last  thirty  years  have  been 
terrible  for  hearsay  Christians.  The  very  founda- 
tions have  been  searched.  From  the  side  of  science, 
from  the  side  of  historical  investigation,  from  the 
side  of  the  new  method  of  literary  analysis,  from  the 
side  of  philosophical  speculation,  everything  most 
venerable  has  been  challenged.  The  old  apologetics, 
the  old  cosmogony,  have  been  tested.  The  storms 
have  beaten  upon  the  Bible  and  have  not  spared  one 
sacred  head.  It  has  been  a  time  when  God  has  per- 
mitted the  shaking  of  all  the  traditional  things,  that 
the  things  which  can  not  be  shaken  might  remain. 

But  how  is  it  in  the  sphere,  not  of  faith,  but  of 


154  IN   MANY  PULPITS 

doubt?  You  are  not  a  Christian,  you  say,  because 
you  have  doubts.  You  call  them  "honest"  doubts. 
About  the  Bible,  about  hell,  about  the  true  condi- 
tions of  salvation  you  have  "honest"  doubts.  Now 
in  all  truth: 

"Sayest  thou  this  thing  of  thyself,  or  did  others  tell  it  thee 
of  me?"  —  John  1S.34 

Did  it  come  out  of  your  own  agony  of  striving  to 
find  a  way  out  of  sin  into  victory,  out  of  unrest  into 
peace?  Or  did  you  get  it  from  the  writings  of  an  in- 
fidel like  Robert  Ingersoll?  You  think  there  are 
contradictions  in  the  Bible.  Did  you  ever  find  any? 
When  you  did  find  something  which  presented  a 
difficulty  did  you  honestly  seek  help  from  some  one 
whom  you  believed  to  be  expert  in  such  matters, 
as  you  did  with  your  other  difficulties?  Are  you 
satisfied  to  go  on  through  life  in  that  way,  passing  on 
second  hand  sneers  at  everything  that  is  venerable? 
There  has  not  been  uttered  a  new  argument  against 
Christ  in  1,700  years. 

"Sayest  thou  this  thing  of  thyself,  or  did  others  tell  it  thee 
of  me?"  —  John  18:34 

But  our  Lord's  question  should  narrowly  search 
those  of  us  who  suppose  ourselves  to  be  Christians. 
Do  we  say  this  thing  of  ourselves,  or  because  an- 
other said  it  before  us?  Christianity  is  a  religion  in 
which  faith  is  alone  the  condition  of  life.  Mani- 
festly, therefore,  the  possession  of  faith  is  the  all-im- 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  155 

portant  matter.  How  much  of  that  which  we  say  we 
believe  do  we  really  believe?  I  am  not  speaking  now 
to  conscious  hypocrites,  men  who  have  put  on  a 
cloak  of  profession  for  a  reason.  I  think  there  are 
very  few  conscious  hypocrites  in  human  life,  either 
in  or  out  of  the  churches.  The  point  is  that  just  as 
an  unbeliever  may  take  his  doubt  from  the  lips  of 
another,  so  we  may  easily  live  in  a  second-hand, 
hearsay  faith. 

Against  this  danger  Christ  uttered  His  most  solemn 
warnings. 

"Not  every  one  that  saith  unto  me,  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  heaven;  but  he  that  doeth  the  will 
of  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 

Many  will  say  to  me  in  that  day,  Lord,  Lord,  have  we 
not  prophesied  in  thy  name?  and  in  thy  name  have  cast 
out  devils?  and  in  thy  name  done  many  wonderful 
works? 

And  then  will  I  profess  unto  them,  I  never  knew  you:" 

—  Matthew  7:21-23 

How  much  would  our  creed  lose  in  bulk,  if  we 
honestly  eliminated  the  articles  concerning  which  we 
have  no  real  convictions?  How  much  would  it  be 
diminished  if  we  submitted  it  to  the  test  of  perform- 
ance? We  have  all  heard  the  story  of  the  little 
girl  who  told  the  visiting  minister  that  her  mother, 
lately  come  to  that  place,  had  her  religion  in  her 
trunk.  Christ,  so  far  as  I  have  read  his  words,  does 
not  contemplate  filling  heaven  with  people  whose 
religion  is  in  their  trunks. 


156  IN    MANY   PULPITS 

There  can  be  no  more  salutary  thing  than  for  a 
Christian  to  ask  himself  the  great  epochal  question  of 
Christ's, 

"Sayest  thou  this  thing  of  thyself?"  —  John  18:34 

Now,  happily,  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  because  it  is 
trust  in  a  person  and  not  in  a  form  of  words,  is  a 
matter  of  personal  consciousness.  I  know  whether  I 
am  trusting  Christ  or  not.  I  may  think  small  things 
of  my  faith,  and  wish  it  bulked  larger,  but  the  real 
point  is,  not  what  I  think  of  my  faith,  but  what  I 
think  of  Jesus  Christ.  Do  I  really  trust  to  Him  my 
whole  case  before  God?  Do  I  really  trust  Him  to 
work  transformingly  in  my  life?  Have  I  ever  really 
had  a  transaction  with  Him  about  my  sins?  These 
are  vital  questions,  and  every  man  may  answer  them 
quietly,  reverently,  in  his  own  soul.  One  who  can 
say  "yes"  to  these  questions  is  on  the  foundation, 
and  the  construction  of  a  vital  creed  will  not  be 
difficult.  A  Christian  finds  no  difficulty  in  believing 
whatever  Christ  believed,  because  He  believed  it; 
and  whatever  He  taught,  because  He  taught  it,  and 
whatever  His  apostles  taught,  because  He  sent  them 
and  authenticated  them. 

"Sayest  thou  this  thing  of  thyself?"  —  John  18:34 

There  is  another  place  in  the  Christian  life  where 
hearsay  works  havoc.  It  is  the  place  of  profession,  of 
the  spoken  word,  of  personal  testimony.  And  the 
havoc  is  wrought,  not  to  the  souls  of  bystanders, 
half  so  much  as  to  the  soul  of  the  utterer.    No  more 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  157 

lethal  habit  can  find  place  in  the  Christian  life  than 
the  habit  of  passing  on  the  pious  platitudes  and  cur- 
rent phrases,  which,  on  the  lips  of  the  first  utterer, 
stood  for  deep  spiritual  verities. 

Henry  Drummond  gave  a  definition  of  cant  which 
is  among  the  very  few  of  his  sayings  that  I  would 
willingly  see  live.  He  said:  "There  is  a  young  man's 
experience,  and  there  is  an  old  woman's  experience; 
when  a  young  man  talks  like  an  old  woman,  that  is 
cant."  And  of  the  many  odious  and  detestable 
things  on  this  earth,  cant,  religious  cant,  is  the  most 
odious  and  detestable. 

It  seems  a  pity  to  say  it,  but  the  hymnology  of 
the  church  is  the  occasion  of  more  insincere  speech 
than  all  other  occasions  combined.  Hymns  were,  for 
the  most  part,  written  by  men  and  women  who  were 
most  saintly  souls,  and  they  express  the  highest  as- 
pirations, and  the  very  deepest  devotedness.  When 
we  are  really  attuned  to  those  lofty  strains  of  praise 
and  consecration,  they  are  inexpressibly  uplifting  and 
helpful.  But  to  sing,  while  gazing  curiously  about  in 
a  church,  is  to  desecrate  the  holiest  protestations. 
Of  late  years  there  has  come  into  use  the  expression, 
"the  simple  life."  The  old  meaning  of  the  word 
"simple"  is  "undesigning,  artless,  sincere."  Thus 
used,  it  exactly  expresses  the  kind  of  Christians 
Jesus  Christ  wishes  us  to  be.  But  despite  this  sim- 
plicity we  must  be  strong  in  our  convictions  —  not 
reeds 

"shaken  with  the  wind,"  —  Matthew  11:7 


158  IN   MANY  PULPITS 

1101  easily  led  away  by  deceitful  sophistry  — 

"enticing  words  of  man's  wisdom,"  —  /  Corinthians  2:4 

Let  us  "say  things  of  ourselves"  — 

"Now  we  have  received  not  the  spirit  of  the  world,  but  the 
spirit  which  is  of  God;  that  we  might  know  the  things  that 
are  freely  given  to  us  of  God."  —  /  Corinthians  2:12 

and 

"Thanks  be  to  God,  which  giveth  us  the  victory  through 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  —  /  Corinthians  15:57 


DID  JESUS    RISE? 


DID  JESUS    RISE? 


"  This  Jesus  hath  God  raised  up,  whereof  we  all  are  witnesses." 

—  Acts  2:32 


NO  one  can  read  with  attention  the  last  chapters 
of  the  Gospels,  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  or  the 
Epistles,  without  a  profound  conviction  that  the  res- 
urrection of  Jesus  Christ  was  to  the  first  witnesses 
to  Christianity,  a  fact  in  which  they  had  an  un- 
doubted belief,  a  joyous  and  triumphant  confidence. 
Was  that  belief  grounded  upon  adequate  testimony? 
Were  those  men  constrained  to  it  by  irresistible  and 
overwhelming  evidence,  or  were  they  deceived  by 
supposed  visions  and  unverified  "materializations"? 

One  of  the  greatest  of  the  Chief  Justices  of  Eng- 
land, himself  a  professed  deist,  said:  "The  resur- 
rection of  Jesus  Christ  rests  upon  a  basis  of  testimony 
greater  and  more  indisputable  than  sustains  any 
other  fact  of  ancient  history."  Let  us  review  that 
body  of  proof.  It  has  been  preserved  to  us  in  every 
essential. 

We  should  note,  first  of  all,  that  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus  Christ  was  announced  in  the  prophecies  of 
the  Old  Testament  concerning  the  coming  of  the 

161 


168  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

Messiah.     The  16th  Psalm  is  quoted  in  the  second 
chapter  of  Acts:  26,  2  j  as  applying  to  Christ. 

"My  flesh  also  shall  rest  in  hope. 
For   thoil   wilt    not    leave   my  soul   in  hell;    neither  wilt 
thou  suffer  thine  Holy  One  to  see  corruption." 

—  Psalms  i6:g,  10 


Indeed,  the  Jewish  people  had  always  interpreted  it 
of  Messiah,  nor  could  it  apply  to  any  other. 

Furthermore,  Christ  Himself  had  repeatedly  fore- 
told His  own  resurrection.  He  had  fearlessly 
staked  the  authority  of  His  gospel,  and  the  authen- 
ticity of  His  claims  to  the  faith  and  obedience  of 
the  world,  upon  His  physical  resurrection. 

"Destroy  this  temple,  and  in  three  days  I  will  raise  it  up. 
Then  said  the  Jews,  Forty  and  six  years  was  this  temple 
in  building,  and  wilt  thou  rear  it  up  in  three  days? 
But  he  spake  of  the  temple  of  his  body." 

—  John  2.1Q-21 

This  was  made  one  of  the  grounds  of  Christ's  ac- 
cusation before  the  Sanhedrin.  More  than  once, 
without  the  use  of  inference,  He  had  explicitly  an- 
nounced His  resurrection. 


"From  that  time  forth  began  Jesus  to  shew  unto  his 
disciples,  how  that  he  must  go  unto  Jerusalem,  and  suffer 
many  things  of  the  elders  and  chief  priests  and  scribes, 
and  be  killed  and  be  raised  again  the  third  day." 

—  Matthew  16:21 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  163 

"For  as  Jonas  was  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the 
whale's  belly;  so  shall  the  Son  of  man  be  three  days 
and  three  nights  in  the  heart  of  the  earth." 

—  Matthew  12:40 

"Then  he  took  unto  him  the  twelve,  and  said  unto  them, 
Behold,  we  go  up  to  Jerusalem,  .    .   .  "  —  Luke  18:31 

"And  they  shall  scourge  him  and  put  him  to  death:  and 
the  third  day  he  shall  rise  again."  —  Luke  18:33 

But  prediction  is  not  proof  of  the  fact  predicted, 
and  we  turn  to  the  proof  of  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus  Christ.  It  was  attested  by  many  witnesses 
and  their  testimony  meets  the  most  exacting  demands 
of  the  law  of  evidence. 

The  witnesses  knew  Him  personally.  They  were 
His  most  intimate  friends.  They  knew  His  stature, 
the  color  of  His  eyes,  the  tones  of  His  voice.  One 
of  them,  Mary  of  Magdala,  incredulous  as  to  the 
fact  of  Jesus  rising  again,  and  who  did  not  in  the 
dimness  of  her  tears  recognize  Him  by  His  general 
appearance,  knew  Him  at  once  when  He  spoke. 
Three  of  the  witnesses,  Peter,  James  and  John,  were 
with  Jesus  in  all  the  crises  of  His  life  after  they 
became  His  disciples.  It  was  therefore  impossible 
that  they  could  have  been  deceived.  If  Jesus  did 
not  rise,  they  deliberately  fabricated  the  report  that 
He  had. 

But  that  theory  falls  to  the  ground  the  moment  we 
consider  two  collateral  facts:  they  were  the  holiest 
of  men  of  whom  the  world  bears  any  record;  they 
lost  all  that  men  hold  dear  —  country,  the  religion  of 


164  IN  MANY   PULPITS 

their  fathers;  they  incurred  a  relentless  persecution 
which  brought  them  into  ceaseless  suffering  and  at 
last  to  cruel  deaths.  They  could  not  have  been  de- 
ceived, and  they  attested  to  the  sincerity  of  their 
convictions  by  their  sufferings  and  by  martyrdom. 

These  men  were  incredulous  and  hard  to  convince. 
Perhaps  the  fact  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ 
never  met  a  more  inveterate  skepticism  than  just 
there,  in  the  circle  of  the  apostles  and  first  believers. 
The  artless  narrative  discloses  that  incredulity  with 
an  almost  childish  naivete.  The  women  who  went 
to  the  tomb,  so  far  from  expecting  a  resurrection, 
were  considering  how  they  might  roll  away  the  stone 
which  made  secure  the  body  of  Christ.  The  angelic 
appearance  frightened  without  convincing  them. 
When  they  told  what  they  had  seen  to  the  apostles 
and  other  disciples, 

"their  words  seemed  to  them  as  idle  tales,  and  they  be- 
lieved them  not."  —  Luke  24:11 

When  Jesus  appeared  in  the  midst  of  the  disciples, 
they  were  terrified  and  affrighted  and  supposed  that 
they  had  seen  a  spirit.  Even  after  He  had  shown 
them  His  hands  and  His  feet,  and  offered  His  body  to 
a  tactual  examination,  they 

"believed  not  for  joy,  and  wondered;"  —  Luke  24:41 

until  He  actually  ate  before  them.  Each  reappear- 
ance was  marked  by  similar  evidences  of  unbelief. 
It  seems  as  if  nothing  could  overcome  their  incre- 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.  SCOFIELD  165 

dulity.  Thomas  would  not  believe  on  the  testimony 
of  the  other  disciples,  but  demanded  and  received 
such  evidences  of  his  Lord's  bodily  resurrection  as 
brought  him  to  his  knees  in  the  adoring  exclamation: 

"My  Lord   and  my   God."  —  John   20:28 

The  witnesses  were  numerous.  It  is  of  course  con- 
ceivable that  ignorant  fishermen,  even  though  be- 
longing to  the  least  superstitious  of  all  the  peoples  of 
the  earth,  might  have  been  the  victims  of  an  hallu- 
cination; but  it  is  inconceivable  that  so  many  men  of 
that  non-superstitious  race  could  have  been  so  de- 
ceived. The  hypothesis  that  they  were,  makes  a 
greater  demand  on  faith  than  the  fact  of  the  resur- 
rection itself. 

Paul  sums  up  the  matter,  in  this  aspect  of  it: 

"He  was  seen  of  Cephas,  then  of  the  twelve: 
After  that,  he  was  seen  of  above  five  hundred  brethren 
at  once ;   of  whom  the  greater  part  remain  unto  this  pres- 
ent, but  some  are  fallen  asleep. 

After   that,  he   was    seen   of   James;    then   of   all    the 
apostles. 
And  last  of  all  he  was  seen  of  me  also." 

—  /  Corinthians  15:5-8 

The  tests,  as  has  already  been  suggested,  were  such 
as  to  exclude  the  possibility  of  deception.  Jesus 
talked  with  His  friends;  He  ate  before  them;  they 
handled  Him,  in  proof  that  He  was  a  body  of  flesh 
and  bones  —  not  a  phantasm  or  so-called  "materi- 
alization," in  a  garden  outside  His  tomb,  in  an  upper 


KUi  IN  MANY  PULPITS 

chamber  before  the  whole  discipleship,  on  a  moun- 
tain side,  in  Galilee,  by  a  lake  on  the  shore  of  which 
He  had  Himself  prepared  for  His  disciples  a  break- 
fast of  fishes  broiled  on  living  coals  —  these  are  the 
tests.  To  attempt  to  account  for  them  on  the  theory 
of  phantasm  is  an  insult,  not  alone  to  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  witnesses,  but  to  our  own  intelligence. 
Any  theory  which  makes  a  greater  demand  upon 
credulity  than  the  fact  sought  to  be  proved,  is,  ipso 
facto,  to  be  rejected. 

These  witnesses,  His  closest  friends,  men  of  the 
highest  character,  numerous,  themselves  incredulous, 
were  furnished  with  tests  which  put  out  of  court  the 
theory  of  deception  or  phantasm. 

If  their  conviction  of  the  truth  of  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus  Christ  had  rested  on  a  single  appearance, 
there  might  be  left  in  the  candid  mind  a  residue  of 
doubt,  notwithstanding  the  great  number  of  the  wit- 
nesses who  have  testified.  But  when  to  all  this  over- 
whelming body  of  proof  it  is  added  that  the  appear- 
ances of  the  risen  Lord  were  numerous,  it  is  hard  to 
see  how  a  candid  mind  can  still  hold  a  rational  doubt. 
It  is  evident  that  by  sheer  dint  of  frequency,  if  in  no 
other  way,  the  incredulity  with  which  the  disciples 
at  first  received  the  fact  of  the  resurrection,  had 
wholly  disappeared.  After  the  first  excitement  had 
subsided,  giving  way  to  a  sober  faith  in  an  evident 
fact,  Christ  continued  with  His  friends  for  forty 
days, 

"speaking   of    the   things   pertaining   to    the   kingdom   of 
God:"  —  Acts  1:3 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  167 

How  complete  the  certainty  of  His  resurrection 
had  become,  is  evidenced  not  only  by  the  clear  ring 
of  their  testimony  after  His  departure,  but  by  the 
composure  of  their  fellowship  with  Christ  during  the 
forty  days. 

"To  whom  also  he  shewed  himself  alive  after  his  passion  by 
many  infallible  proofs,  being  seen  of  them  forty  days,  and 
speaking  of  the  things  pertaining  to  the  kingdom  of  God: 
And,  being  assembled  together  with  them,  commanded 
them  that  they  should  not  depart  from  Jerusalem,  but 
wait  for  the  promise  of  the  Father,  which,  saith  he,  ye 
have  heard    of  me. 

For  John  truly  baptized   with  water,  but  ye  shall   be 
baptized  with  the  Holy  Ghost  not  many  days  hence." 

—  Acts  1:3-5 

"But  ye  shall  receive  power,  after  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is 
come  upon  you:  and  ye  shall  be  witnesses  unto  me  both 
in  Jerusalem,  and  in  all  Judea;  and  in  Samaria  and 
unto  the  uttermost  part  of  the  earth. 
And  when  he  had  spoken  these  things,  while  they  beheld, 
he  was  taken  up:  and  a  cloud  received  him  out  of  their 
sight."  —  Acts  1:8,  g 

The  witnesses  to  the  fact  of  the  resurrection  testi- 
fied at  once  and  publicly.  If  they  had  kept  silence 
concerning  it,  only  committing  their  evidence  to 
writing,  which  writing  was  not  allowed  to  see  the 
light  till  that  generation  had  passed  from  the  sphere 
of  life,  then,  indeed,  we  might  doubt  proof  so  clouded 
with  suspicion.  But  these  holy  men  gave  their  testi- 
mony with  the  utmost  simplicity. 

"We  are  his  witnesses  of  these  things;"  —  Acts  5:32 


168  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

said  Peter  in  tin'  presence  of  a  great  multitude  in 
Jerusalem,  where  all  those  things  were  done,  and 
that  within  fifty  days  of  the  event.  All  of  the  men 
and  women  concerned  in  the  tremendous  drama  of 
the  death  ami  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  were 
still  living  and  were  there.  That  was  the  time  and 
place  to  disprove  the  fact  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
Christ.  If  it  had  been  done,  Christianity  as  a  reli- 
gion would  have  passed  into  the  Jewish  acta  sanc- 
torum. But  that  disproof  was  never  offered.  The 
only  answer  to  the  triumphant  proclamation  of  the 
resurrection  was  persecution  —  the  invariable  answer 
of  bigotry  and  superstition. 

It  remains  to  note  the  tremendous  evidential  value 
of  the  conversion  of  the  apostle  Paul.  By  any 
standard,  Paul  was  the  most  considerable  man  of  his 
age.  All  the  other  personages  of  that  time  have 
passed  into  an  obscurity  which  would  be  absolute 
were  not  some  of  them  remembered  because  of  some 
immense  infamy,  or  because  for  a  moment  they 
crossed  the  path  of  Paul.  He  alone  stands  out,  —  the 
supreme  man  of  his  day.  Great  in  intellect,  great  in 
scope  of  vision,  great  in  moral  eminence,  he  was  also 
one  of  the  most  highly  trained  men  of  his  or  any 
other  time. 

And  that  man,  a  contemporary  of  Christ  and  of 
the  witnesses  to  Christ's  resurrection,  a  foremost 
opponent  of  them  and  of  the  gospel,  was  convinced 
by  first  hand  proof  —  offered  by  living  men  —  that 
Jesus  rose  from  the  dead.    No  ingenuity  or  sophistry 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  169 

can  set  aside  that  fact.  To  believe  in  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus  Christ  becomes  therefore  a  rational  act. 
Paul  asks: 

"Why  should  it  be  thought  a  thing  incredible  with  you, 
that  God  should  raise  the  dead?"  —  Acts  26:8 

And  what  it  is  rational  to  believe,  it  is  irrational  to 
doubt  or  disbelieve. 

Other  and  confirmatory  proof  abounds.  The  very 
presence  in  history  of  the  Christian  church  from  the 
apostolic  time  proves  the  truth  of  the  resurrection. 
Nothing  is  clearer  than  that  the  first  disciples  had 
given  it  all  up.    But  God  had,  as  Peter  says: 

"Begotten  us  again  unto  a  lively  hope  by  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus  Christ  from  the  dead"  —  /  Peter  1:3 

Yes,  the  Christ 

"Who  his  own  self  bare  our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the 
tree"  —  /  Peter  2:24 

did  rise  again. 

"Jesus  of  Nazareth,  which  was  crucified:   he  is  risen;" 

—  Mark  16:6 

and  that  fact  establishes  the  authority  of  His  gospel 
and  compels  candid  hearts  to  bow  at  His  feet.  For 
by  His  resurrection  Christ  overcame  death  and 
opened  for  us  the  gate  to  everlasting  life. 

"O  death,  where  is  thy  sting?     O  grave,  where  is  thy 
victory?"  —  /  Corinthians  15:55 


THE   BIBLE 


THE  BIBLE 

BEYOND  all  question  Christianity,  whether  as  a 
salvation  or  as  a  system  of  faith  and  morals, 
is  inseparable  from  the  Bible.  From  the  very  be- 
ginning of  our  Lord's  public  ministry  in  the  synagogue 
at  Nazareth  this  place  of  the  authority  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures  was  assumed  as  fundamental  to  the  Chris- 
tian religion. 

I  do  not  know  that  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the 
Bible  is  anywhere  more  compactly  expressed  than  in 
the  words  of  Paul : 

"All  scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  and  is  profit- 
able for  doctrine,  for  reproof,  for  correction,  for  instruc- 
tion in  righteousness, 

That  the  man  of  God  may  be  perfect,  throughly  fur- 
nished unto  all  good  works."  —  //  Timothy  3:16,  17 

Christianity  does  not  hold  an  abstract  theory  about 
the  Bible,  but  rather  a  living  and  working  faith  in  it 
as  an  instrument  in  the  divine  purpose,  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  great  and  blessed  results  in  salvation, 
life,  and  service.  There  is  no  such  thing  in  all  the 
Bible  as  an  abstract  doctrine,  —  something  which  is 
to  be  held  head-wise  and  not  heart-wise,  as  a  mere 
matter  of  opinion  and  controversy,  instead  of  action 

173 


174  IN    MANY   PULPITS 

and  life.  These  are  great  ami  serious  demands.  We 
are  living  our  one  only  earthly  life,  and  we  cannot  af- 
ford to  be  the  victims  of  mere  tradition  or  of  a  mere 
philosophy.  We  are  glad  and  confident,  therefore, 
that  the  great  facts  —  historical  and  verifiable  facts 
—  which  form  the  substance  of  the  Christian  faith, 
and  out  of  which  its  doctrines  grow,  were  not  trans- 
acted in  a  corner.  Submitting  to  the  authority  of  the 
Bible,  we  are  not  unable  to  give  a  reason  for  the  hope 
that  is  in  us. 

Now,  as  briefly  as  may  be  in  a  subject  of  this  kind, 
I  am  going  to  state  the  grounds  upon  which  we  be- 
lievers hold  to  the  divine  origin  and  authority  of  the 
Bible.  If  the  book  is  God's  book,  it  is  authoritive,  and 
we  may  proceed  to  develop  its  teachings  with  the  as- 
surance that  God  is  back  of  them;  that  they  are  rev- 
elations of  His  will  and  wisdom  —  hence,  to  be  im- 
plicitly received  and  believed  and  obeyed. 

I.  The  first  of  these  in  the  Biblical  order  is  the 
Bible  account  of  the  origin  of  the  material  universe, 
and  that  affirmation,  simple,  sublime,  and  perfectly 
adequate,  is  that  God  made  it, 

"In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth" 

—  Genesis  i :  i 

and  the  majestic  story  proceeds  without  ever  falling 
below  the  sublime  keynote  which  opens  it.  This  cos- 
mogony, or  account  of  the  origin  of  the  universe,  is 
absolutely  unique.  It  is  not  merely  the  best  of  many 
other  like  theories,  but  it  stands  alone.  There  is  none 
other  like  it  in  any  respect  whatever.    The  cosmogo- 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  175 

nies  of  even  the  most  intellectual  of  the  races,  Greeks, 
Hindoos,  Chinese,  are  childish  and  inadequate  in 
comparison  with  this.    In  India,  the  theory  that  the 
earth  rests  upon  an  elephant,  and  he  upon  a  tor- 
toise, is  not  a  child's  story  to  amuse  the  infant  mind. 
The  Bible  cosmogony  was  written  by  one  whose  edu- 
cation and  environment  we  know  all  about.     That 
education  was  entirely  Egyptian,  but  there  is  noth- 
ing in  the  least  like  this  cosmogony  in  all  the  records 
of  the  thought  and  learning  of  Egypt.     The  Genesis 
story  of  creation  came  by  revelation.     Either  this, 
or  Moses  invented  it,  and  that  is  a  more  unbelievable 
proposition  than  that  it  came  from  God,  because 
the  development  of  the  human  mind  proceeds  in  an 
orderly  way,  step  by  step,  and  while  a  great  genius 
may  take  many  of  those  steps  and  go  far  in  advance 
of  those  who  have  gone  before  him,  he  moves  out  in 
the  same  direction  nevertheless.     He  may  be  ac- 
counted for.     Previous  to  his  time,  thought  and  in- 
vestigation had  broken  the  soil  and  planted  the  seed 
which  blossomed  into  fullness  when  the  great  man 
appeared.     There  had  been  Scottish  legend  writers 
before  Sir  Walter  Scott;  wandering  minstrels  before 
Homer;  play- writers  before  Shakespeare;  sculptors 
before  Phidias;    evolutionists  before  Darwin.    But 
there  was  nothing  back  of  Moses  which  pointed  in 
his  direction,  —  absolutely  nothing. 

Now,  that  cosmogony  must  be  accounted  for:  there 
it  is  in  the  Bible.  But  there  is  no  way  of  accounting 
for  it  other  than  the  Christian  way,  namely,  that 
Moses  received  it  by  revelation  from  God. 


176  IN   MANY  PULPITS 

II.  The  Bible  contains  a  continuous  history  of 
events  occurring  during  four  thousand  and  more  years 
of  time. 

Canon  Farrar  has  said  —  and  the  statement  stands 
without  disproof  today  —  that  "in  all  that  history, 
there  has  never  been  pointed  out  one  clear  and  de- 
monstrable error."  That,  my  dear  friends,  is  not 
true  of  any  other  history  in  any  other  book.  I  know 
that  every  now  and  then  —  with  great  flourish  of 
trumpets  —  an  announcement  is  made  that  an  error 
has  been  found  in  the  historical  part  of  the  Bible. 
For  example,  some  time  ago,  it  was  announced  con- 
fidently that  the  Bible  account  of  Nimrod  was  an  his- 
torical absurdity.  That  was  the  precise  statement 
made  by  Professor  Driver  of  Oxford.  "The  Bible 
history  of  Nimrod,  said  he,  "is  an  historical  ab- 
surdity." Now  Professor  Driver  was  a  very  famous 
man,  and  in  certain  quarters  where  scholarship,  so- 
called,  ranks  above  "thus  saith  the  Lord"  —  there 
was  great  consternation.  You  know  there  are  always 
people  —  preachers,  too  —  who  are  frightened  by 
every  assault  which  is  made  upon  the  Bible  if  it  comes 
from  a  man  with  a  goodly  number  of  capital  letters 
attached  to  his  name.  If  he  is  a  D.D.  and  an  LL.D. 
-  F.R.S.  and  says  there  is  an  error  in  the  Bible, 
they  are  ready  to  concede  it.  Now,  since  Professor 
Driver  was  delivered  of  this  Nimrod  dictum, Professor 
Sayce,  also  of  Oxford,  has  gone  down  into  the  near 
neighborhood  of  the  Nimrod  country,  and  has  written 
from  Assouan  in  these  words,  "I  have  found  Nimrod 
in  the  cuneiform  inscriptions.    His  full  name  was  Nagi 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.   SCOFIELD  177 

Murada,  the  Kassu,  and  he  was  the  Babylonian  con- 
temporary of  the  father  of  the  Assyrian  king  who 
restored  Nineveh  and  founded  Calah  about  fifty  years 
before  the  Exodus.     So  Moses  was  right  after  all." 

Professor  Driver  confidently  announced,  as  being 
himself  the  highest  authority,  that  the  story  of  Nim- 
rod  was  an  historical  absurdity;  but  the  first  expert 
who  went  down  into  that  country  and  began  to  dig 
found  an  inscription  which  told  the  story  of  Nimrod 
and  confirms  Moses.  The  last  fifty  years  have  been 
notable  for  the  frequency  with  which  the  spade  has 
confirmed  Moses.  The  "Christian"  remarked  upon 
this  last  confirmation,  that  it  might  be  just  as  well,  as 
Moses  has  always  proven  to  be  right,  to  assume  that 
he  is  right,  when  seeming  error  is  reported.  At  the 
present  moment,  unbelief  is  asserting  that  the  Baby- 
lonian records  contain  something  which  might  have 
been  suggestive  of  the  Ten  Commandments;  but 
place  side  by  side  the  Babylonian  creeds  and  this 
great  utterance  of  God  and  you  perceive  contrast,  not 
similarity.  Now  where  does  this  book,  alone  among 
all  human  histories,  get  this  unique  infallibility?  I 
submit  that  the  most  reasonable  answer  is  that  it  is 
derived  from  an  infallible  God. 

III.  The  Bible  contains  a  code  of  ethics  absolutely 
unique  among  human  writings  —  the  Ten  Command- 
ments. 

After  centuries  of  human  thought  about  duty  to- 
ward God  and  man,  that  law  remains  the  only  perfect 
code  ever  written  —  no  one  questions  that.  Now 
where  did  Moses  get  that  law?     This  Moses  must 


ITS  IN    MANY   PULPITS 

have  been  a  very  wonderful  man,  if  out  of  his  own 
mind  he  wrote  not  only  the  only  accurate  and  ade- 
quate cosmogony,  and  the  only  absolutely  truthful 
and  reliable  history  ever  penned,  but  also  the  only 
perfect  code  of  ethics  known  to  man.  Did  he  get  all 
this  out  of  his  Egyptian  learning?  Now,  in  the  provi- 
dence of  God,  Egyptian  learning  was  carved  in  im- 
perishable granite,  or  kept  for  modern  discovery  in 
sarcophagi  and  tombs.  In  our  day  that  literature 
has  been  recovered  letter  by  letter,  and  there  is  not 
in  all  the  Egyptian  wisdom  one  trace  of  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments. Where  did  Moses  get  that  law?  Our 
explanation  is  that  he  got  it  from  God.  He  says 
God  gave  him  these  words,  and  we  believe  it.  Could 
that  code  be  duplicated  out  of  the  lore  of  any  of  the 
other  races,  we  would  be  forced  to  the  conclusion  either 
that  God  had  made  independent  revelations  here  and 
there,  or  that  all  writings  claiming  to  record  revela- 
tions from  God  were,  after  all,  but  the  product  of 
transcendent  human  ability.  But  there  is  nothing 
like  it  anywhere  else  —  nothing.  It  stands  alone. 
Still  less  can  any  Babylonian  writing  be  thought  of. 

The  mark  of  God  upon  it  is  its  solitariness  and  its 
perfection.  Man  never  makes  a  perfect  thing. 
Through  the  microscope  the  finest  needle  looks  like 
a  jagged  crowbar,  but  under  the  microscope  a  bee's 
sting  looks  as  finished  and  perfect  as  when  viewed 
by  the  eye  alone. 

IV.  We  believe  the  Bible  because  it  contains  a 
doctrine  of  sin  and  retribution  which  commends  it- 
self alike  to  the  reason  and  the  conscience.    In  this 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  179 

respect  also,  the  Bible  stands  alone.  All  false  reli- 
gions connect  sin  with  failure  in  some  ritual  observ- 
ance. The  Bible  rests  its  doctrine  of  sin  upon  the 
eternal  principles  of  right  and  wrong;  and  when 
those  principles  are  stated  in  the  moral  law,  con- 
science answers:  "Amen,  that  is  right.  I  ought  to 
have  no  other  God  before  Thee;  I  ought  not  make 
to  myself  a  graven  image  and  fall  down  and  worship 
it."  And  so  on  down  through  the  great  ten  words 
from  Mt.  Sinai,  the  conscience  answers  "Amen"  to 
every  one  of  them.  The  doctrine  of  the  Bible  con- 
cerning sin  and  the  consequences  of  sin,  commends 
itself  to  reason,  and  no  other  system  ever  produced 
among  men  concerning  sin  and  its  consequences, 
does  commend  itself  to  reason  or  to  conscience. 

Were  I  to  go  to  a  Hindoo  or  a  Mohammedan  and 
say  that  I  felt  myself  a  sinner  before  God,  what  would 
he  tell  me?  He  would  tell  me  to  make  a  pilgrimage 
to  a  certain  shrine,  to  say  so  many  prayers,  to  whirl 
until  I  fell  unconscious  to  the  ground,  to  fast,  and  to 
perform  all  kinds  of  outward  observances.  But  could 
I  feel  that  there  was  anything  in  such  actions  which 
would  in  any  adequate  way  meet  the  demands  of 
God's  justice?  No  one  could  feel  it.  But  turn  to 
that  old,  old  Bible.  You  will  find  a  doctrine  of  sin, 
of  retribution  and  of  redemption,  which  perfectly 
satisfies  heart  and  mind.  We  can  say  nothing  against 
it.  We  may  refuse  it,  but  we  cannot  belittle  it,  and 
no  rational  being  does.  Now,  where,  three  thousand 
years  ago,  did  the  men  of  the  Bible  get  this  doctrine? 
They  got  it  from  God. 


iso  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

V.  The  Bible  contains  hundreds  of  prophetic 
utterances.  These  prophecies  were  given  so  long  be- 
fore the  events  toward  which  they  pointed  had  trans- 
pired, it  is  impossible  to  say  the  coming  event  was 
near  enough  to  east  its  shadow  before  and  suggest 
the  prophecy  itself.  Sometimes  there  is  a  gathering 
of  portents  in  the  political  sky,  or  in  international 
affairs;  we  often  see  premonitions  of  coming  eco- 
nomic storms,  social  upheaval  and  the  like,  and  we 
predict  that  in  a  few  years  there  will  be  hard  times, 
or  a  revolution,  or  a  change  in  party  domination. 
We  are  not  prophets  because  we  predict  these  things: 
we  see  the  signs  of  them.  We  reason  from  things 
which  are  occurring  and  predict  others,  which  are 
their  natural  consequences.  But  if  you  turn  to  the 
prophecies  of  the  Bible,  you  find  they  anticipate 
events  by  hundreds  and  sometimes  by  thousands  of 
years.  They  speak  of  things  when  there  is  no  sign  of 
them,  when  on  the  other  hand  every  sign  seems  to 
make  them  impossible,  yet  these  ancient  prophecies  in 
the  slow  rolling  of  the  years  have  received  in  hundreds 
of  cases  a  literal  and  exact  fulfillment. 

Another  thing:  These  prophecies  are  so  minute 
and  specific  they  exclude  the  theory  that  some  occur- 
rence in  the  history  of  the  world,  resembling  some- 
what the  thing  predicted,  has  been  assumed  to  be  a 
fulfillment.  They  are  so  specific,  so  minute,  that 
when  we  find  a  fulfillment  which  answers  to  the 
prophecy  made  hundreds  of  years  before,  just  as  the 
printed  page  answers  to  the  type,  we  are  compelled  to 
ask:   "How  does  this  happen?"    Now,  why  is  it  that 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  181 

these  things  are  found  in  no  other  book  but  the 
Bible?  There  can  be  but  one  answer  —  because  God 
gave  these  prophecies  as  the  authentication  and  proof 
that  this  book  was  not  the  work  of  man  but  came 
from  Himself. 

VI.  We  believe  the  Scriptures  because  they  paint 
a  picture  of  God  Himself,  majestic,  perfect  in  the 
balancing  of  His  attributes,  —  yet  withal  so  holy,  so 
loving,  that  when  the  character  of  God  as  developed 
in  the  Bible  comes  to  be  perceived  by  candid  human 
minds,  they  are  filled  with  trustful  adoration;  and 
realizing  that  God  hates  sin  with  a  perfect  hatred 
and  that  they  themselves  are  sinners,  they  yet  feel 
that  by  some  strange  paradox  God  is  the  best  friend 
a  sinner  can  have. 

If  you  turn  to  the  account  which  all  false  reli- 
gions give  of  their  gods,  you  realize  how  utterly  im- 
possible it  is  to  compare  them  with  Jehovah  and 
Jesus. 

All  these  gods  of  false  religions  are  bestial  and 
cruel:  deified  lusts.  And  when  I  say  this,  I  am  not 
speaking  of  the  gods  of  the  heathen  of  Africa  but 
of  the  cultured  heathen  of  Athens  and  the  Ganges. 
Just  at  the  summit  of  their  intellectual  development, 
these  races  form  a  conception  of  deity  which  is  sim- 
ply man  in  his  worst  character,  pluralized  and  lifted 
up  into  the  potency  of  gods.  But  all  the  time,  the 
Hebrew  penmen  unfold  the  revelation  of  a  God  who 
is  omniscient,  omnipotent,  omnipresent,  filling  all 
things  yet  transcending  all  things;  so  great,  the 
clouds  are  the  dust  of  his  feet,  yet  merciful  and 


182  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

patient,  loving  and  tender.  This  doctrine  of  God  is 
consistently  one,  straight  through  Scripture.  The 
Bible  was  more  than  two  thousand  years  in  the  mak- 
ing; many  writers  in  many  ages  were  employed  upon 
it;  yet  the  Biblical  doctrine  of  God  is  developed 
without  fracture  or  inconsistency.  Moses'  God  is 
[saiah's,  and  Isaiah's  God  is  the  God  of  Paul.  Can 
any  theory  but  that  of  inspiration  account  for  this? 
Where  did  these  writers  of  ancient  time,  these 
prophets,  get  an  identical  conception  of  God?  They 
got  it  from  God. 

The  influence  of  this  book  has  been  just  as  unique 
as  everything  else  about  it.  The  better  Moham- 
medan or  Hindoo  a  man  is,  the  worse  he  is.  But  the 
nearer  a  man  comes  to  being  a  Bible  Christian  the 
better  he  is.  We  all  know  that;  and  of  all  the  books 
produced  by  man  and  called  sacred  and  religious, 
this  is  true  alone  of  the  Bible. 

VII.  The  Bible  meets  exactly  every  human  need. 
Had  I  an  intricate-looking  key  and  there  were  before 
me  a  long  row  of  doors  fitted  with  locks  and  I  tried 
my  key  in  one  and  another  of  the  keyholes  until  I 
found  that  the  key  turned  freely  and  unlocked  one 
door,  I  would  know  I  had  found  the  lock  for  which 
the  key  was  made. 

Friends,  this  blessed  old  Bible  fits  every  ward  of 
the  complex  human  heart.  It  holds  the  combination 
of  this  intricate  and  mysterious  thing  which  we  call 
man.  Open  the  Bible,  and  you  may  find  out  more 
about  yourself  than  you  could  find  by  self-study 
during  all  the  years  of  the  longest  life.    It  tells  the 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  183 

truth  about  humanity;  it  gives  infallible  and  right- 
eous guidance  through  life,  and  it  meets  the  question- 
ings of  your  soul  as  you  stand  upon  the  verge  of  life 
and  ask,  —  "Is  this  all?  Have  I  nothing  at  last  but 
the  memory  of  a  pilgrimage  of  temptations  and  trials 
and  disappointments  with  a  few  fleeting  and  transi- 
tory joys?  Have  I  the  power  to  project  my  mind 
over  into  the  beyond,  and  is  there  no  beyond?" 

To  all  these  questions,  the  false  religions  have  no 
answer.  But  come  to  the  Bible  and  there  is  the  open 
door  into  heaven  or  the  open  door  into  hell.  This 
book  is  not  antiquated;  it  fits  the  modern  heart 
just  as  truly  as  it  fitted  the  hearts  of  patriarchs  on 
the  plains  of  Mesopotamia.  There  is  not  today  a 
book  so  modern:  open  it  anywhere  and  it  tells  the 
modern  man  all  about  himself.  In  all  the  develop- 
ment of  civilization,  there  has  never  come  to  lie  in  the 
pathway  of  man  a  temptation  which  the  Bible  does 
not  anticipate,  and  for  which  it  does  not  provide  a 
safeguard.  There  has  never  come  to  any  man  a  con- 
dition for  which  that  Bible  has  not  a  promise,  yet 
modern  society  is  complex  and  highly  organized, 
while  the  Bible  was  chiefly  written  by  men  living 
under  the  simple  and  changeless  circumstances  of  the 
east. 

We  have  to  account  for  these  things  and  we  account 
for  them  by  saying  that  God  gave  the  book,  and  that 
is  simpler  and  more  credible  than  any  other  theory 
which  has  been  suggested  for  these  phenomena. 

VIII.  Then  we  believe  it  because  it  has  found  its 
echo  in  human  experience. 


184  IN    MANY   PULPITS 

We  OOme  to  the  Bible  and  we  find  there  the  story 
of  salvation  and  we  believe  it  and  enter  into  peace 
and  unspeakable  joy.  We  come  to  the  promises  of 
that  book  and  find  them  adapted  to  our  need.  We 
receive  them  and  step  out  upon  them  and  plead  them 
in  prayer  to  God,  and  the  answer  comes  according  to 
the  promise.  In  the  experience  of  the  wisest  and  best 
and  saintliest  men  and  women  this  earth  has  ever 
seen,  the  Bible  has  verified  itself  and  they  know  it 
to  be  inspired,  not  alone  by  such  reasons  as  I  have 
feebly  attempted  to  give,  but  by  a  direct  and  per- 
sonal experience  of  its  truth.  We  believe  it,  because 
followed  faithfully  and  believed  sincerely  it  has 
formed  the  most  beneficent,  the  saintliest  characters, 
this  world  has  ever  seen.  Among  all  books,  it  alone 
has  had  that  influence. 

I  gave  much  of  my  earlier  life  to  the  study  of  the 
two  greatest  of  merely  human  writers,  Homer  and 
Shakespeare,  and  while  my  understanding  undoubt- 
edly profited  by  that  study  and  I  found  keen  intel- 
lectual delight  in  it,  these  books  held  no  rebuke  for 
my  sins,  nor  any  power  to  lift  me  above  them.  But 
when  I  came  to  the  Bible  and  received  its  statements 
and  received  Him  concerning  whom,  after  all,  the 
whole  book  is  written,  I  entered  into  peace  and  joy 
and  power.  The  Bible  led  me  to  Jesus,  and  Jesus 
transformed  my  life. 

"Thy  word  have  I  hid  in  mine  heart,  that  I  might  not  sin 
against  thee." — Psalms  iiq:ii 

For  all  who  have  received  Jesus  Christ  as  divine 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  185 

Saviour  and  Lord  there  exists,  in  His  testimony  to  the 
inspiration  of  Scripture,  an  immovable  and  unanswer- 
able ground  of  belief.  Jesus  knew  whether  the  Bible 
was  inspired  and  whether  Moses  wrote  the  Penta- 
teuch, and  he  confirmed  it  from  lid  to  lid.  As  He 
took  it  up  in  His  daily  teachings,  Jesus  seemed  to 
select,  for  special  sanction,  those  things  which  most 
stagger  faith.  He  confirmed  the  authority,  accuracy 
and  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  He  who  knew  the  writers 
and  was  Himself  in  very  deed  the  Author  of  the 
Book. 


"Holy  men  of  God  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy 
Ghost."  —  //  Peter  1:21 


Except  as  so  moved,  they  did  not  speak. 

It  is  a  human  book  because  the  Holy  Ghost  spake 
to  men  through  Jesus.  It  is  easily  conceivable  that 
God  might  have  revealed  all  the  truth  contained  in 
the  Bible  through  angels;  but,  had  He  done  so, 
the  Bible  would  lack  that  human  element  which 
brings  it  so  peculiarly  close  to  human  life  in  all  its 
phases.  Theology  has  so  persistently  put  the  em- 
phasis on  the  divineness  of  Scripture  that  its  sweet 
humanness  is  in  danger  of  being  forgotten  or  ignored. 
Precisely  the  same  mistake  was  made  in  respect  of 
the  doctrine  of  Christ's  person.  For  centuries  Prot- 
estant theology  so  dwelt  upon  His  Deity,  that  it 
came  largely  to  be  forgotten  that  He  was  also  per- 
fectly human. 

The  penalties  of  forgetting  or  ignoring  the  human- 


186  IN    MANY   PULPITS 

itv  of  Scripture  are  many,  but  perhaps  the  chiefest 

of  them  is  tin*  tendency  to  make  the  Bible  a  kind  of 
fetich  —  a  sort  of  inferior  deity,  to  be  itself  an  object 
oi  worship.  The  truth  is  that  the  written  Word  and 
the  incarnate  Word  have  this  in  common,  —  both  are 
divine  and  both  are  human. 

L  ask  yen  to  think  with  me  about  its  humanity. 
When  Pilate  brought  forth  Jesus  and  said: 

"Behold  the  man!"  —  Jo/in  iq:$ 

he  builded  wiser  than  he  knew,  for  Jesus  is  "the 
man"  —  the  only  perfect  human  being  the  world 
ever  knew  since  the  fall.  All  the  rest  of  us  are,  in 
measure,  dehumanized  by  sin.  In  the  same  way,  the 
Bible  is  the  only  perfectly  human  book.  All  other 
books,  even  the  best,  fail  at  some  point  of  perfect 
humanity.  Shakespeare  has  been  called  the  "high 
priest  of  humanity";  but,  no,  Jesus  Christ  is  the  high 
priest  of  humanity,  and  the  Bible  unfolds  him  from 
God  to  man,  through  man.  Then,  the  Bible  is  hu- 
man because  it  is  given  to  man  through  man.  I  mean 
that,  save  a  few  reported  words  of  angels  and  of  God, 
every  truth  the  Bible  contains  has  first  been  wrought 
into  a  human  consciousness.  I  am  far  from  saying 
that  the  holy  men  who  wrote  the  words  of  Scripture 
always  understood  the  full  purport  of  these  words, 
but  even  when  they  did  not,  they  were  exercised 
about  them. 

Paul  describes  the  whole  process  of  revelation  when 
he  tells  us  that  the  things  unseen  by  eye,  unheard  by 
ear,  unimagined  by  man,  were  revealed  by  the  Holy 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  187 

Spirit,  and  then  communicated  in  spirit-given  words. 
And  it  is  beautiful  to  see  how  the  holy  men,  who 
spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  were 
usually  just  average  men.  Moses  and  David  were 
shepherds  when  God  called  them.  Elijah  was  a  rough 
mountaineer,  Amos  a  herdsman,  Matthew,  John 
and  Peter  were  fishermen.  Some  one  has  said  that 
God  loves  the  common  people.  The  very  Son  of 
God  Himself  was  a  carpenter.  In  its  humanity,  the 
Bible  is  the  people's  book,  not  the  book  of  scholars 
and  experts,  and  the  people  understand  it.  The  Bible 
story  is  intensely  human.  It  does  not  describe  the 
conversations  of  angels,  nor  report  their  conversations 
among  themselves.  There  are  but  the  briefest 
glimpses  of  heaven.  It  is  the  book  of  God's  interests 
in,  and  relations  with  humanity.  The  tremendous 
story  of  creation  is  swiftly  sketched  in  two  brief 
chapters,  that  the  revealing  Spirit  may  come  to  the 
story  of  a  man  and  a  woman,  and  their  children; 
and,  from  Genesis  to  Revelation,  we  are  always  in 
human  scenes,  and  busied  with  the  life  stories  of 
other  men  and  women  and  children.  So  resolutely 
is  this  so,  that  the  heart  burning  to  find  out  God,  and 
what  He  is  like,  can  do  so  only  by  patiently  studying 
His  ways  with  humanity.  The  man  who  turns  with 
weariness  or  dislike  from  the  study  of  man,  will  never 
find  God.  He  will  be  like  the  preacher  who  lived  up 
in  the  steeple  to  be  nearer  God,  only  to  find  out 
when  too  late  that  God  had  been  down  below  with 
his  people  all  the  time. 

Vast  bodies  of  revealed  truth  reach  us  only  in 


iss  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

the  terms  of  human  experience.  The  man  has  been 
made  to  be  and  to  feel  what  he  writes.  The  fifty-first 
Psalm,  for  example,  is  not  an  essay  on  repentance; 

it  is  a  broken-hearted  man  repenting. 

"Have  mercy  upon  me,  .    .    .  blot  out  my  transgressions," 

—  Psalms  51:1 

are  his  desolate  cries;  but  the  fifty-first  Psalm  holds, 
nevertheless,  the  whole  doctrine  of  repentance.  The 
seventh  chapter  of  Romans  is  not  a  treatise  on  the 
two  natures  of  the  believer,  but  Paul's  touching 
testimony  of  how  the  Spirit-born  nature  and  the 
Adam-born  nature  struggled  within  him,  until  rent 
and  exhausted,  he  must  cry, 

"0  wretched  man  that  I  am!"  —  Romans  7:24 

In  like  manner,  the  Psalms  of  David  are  wrung  out 
of  his  inner  anguish,  or  sent  forth  from  his  inner  tri- 
umphs like  the  victor  shout  of  a  king. 

Again,  the  Bible  is  the  most  human  of  books  in  the 
way  it  establishes  and  makes  sacred  human  relation- 
ships. Marriage,  parenthood,  friendship  —  all  sweet 
human  ties  find  in  Scripture  their  sanction  and  safe- 
guard. It  is  the  Bible  that  tells  of  a  God  who  has  "set 
the  solitary  in  families";  it  is  the  Bible  that  tells  how 
the  Son  of  God  began  His  great  ministry  by  adding 
to  the  joy  of  a  marriage  feast;  and  how  He  was 
found  in  the  homes  of  the  people.  Every  wife,  every 
child  is  sacred  in  the  teachings  of  this  humanity- 
loving  book.    Take  away  the  Bible,  and  you  remove 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.  SCOFIELD  189 

from  human  relationships  their  sanctity  and  sanction. 
This  is  why  when  the  home  is  rent  or  desolated,  we 
instinctively  turn  to  Scripture  for  help. 

In  like  manner,  the  Bible  is  the  most  intensely 
sympathetic  of  books.  It  reveals  a  God  who  con- 
siders our  frame,  that  we  are  dust;  and  a  Christ,  who 
was  in  all  points,  save  inner  sin,  tempted  like  us,  and 
who  is  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities. 
We  turn  away  instinctively  from  the  best  meant 
words  of  human  sympathy  to  the  infinite  consolations 
of  that  human  book.  We  do  not  wonder  that  the 
little  imprisoned  Princess  dying  alone  in  Carisbrooke 
Castle,  opened  her  Bible  and  pillowed  her  dying  head 
upon  the  words, 

"Yea,  though  I  walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
death,  I  will  fear  no  evil:    for  thou  art  with  me;" 

—  Psalms   23:4 

Lastly,  the  Bible  is  the  most  human  of  books  be- 
cause it  reveals  the  essential  humanity  of  God.  Now, 
if  there  is  a  theologian  reading  this,  he  is  making  a 
mental  note ;  he  is  saying  that  I  am  anthropomorphic 
in  my  conception  of  God.  Well,  I  am.  That  is 
a  large  word,  but  it  only  means  "manlike."  The 
Bible  tells  me  that  God  made  man  in  His  own 
image,  after  His  likeness.  I  think  it  reverent  to 
infer  that  God  accomplished  His  purpose,  and  so, 
that  man  —  normal  man,  unfallen,  sinless  man  — 
is  really  like  God.  It  may  be  objected  that  the 
contention  is  academic  and  abstract  because  we  do 
not  know  what  unfallen,  sinless  man  is  like.     But 


190  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

the  glory  of  the  incarnation  is  that  it  sets  before 
humanity  just  that  very  glorious  spectacle,  an  un- 
i alien,  sinless  man  —  Jesus  Christ.  And  we  are  told 
that  lie,  in  His  incarnation,  is  the  brightness  of  God's 
glory,  and  the  express  image  of  His  person.  God, 
then,  is  like  Christ,  and  Christ  is  like  God,  nay  more, 
Christ  is  God.  What  is  God,  the  unseen  God,  like? 
He  is  like  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  What  is  sinless,  un- 
f alien  man  like?  Like  that  same  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 
The  humanity  of  our  blessed  Lord  was  not  something 
which  hindered  Him  from  revealing  God,  it  was  the 
very  means  of  that  revelation. 

Here  then,  my  dear  friends,  is  this  most  human 
book.  It  condemns  unsparingly  the  sin  and  the  sins 
which  have  dehumanized  you.  But  it  tells  you  of 
the  divine-human  Christ,  who  died  for  those  very 
sins.  It  will  laugh  with  your  joy  and  weep  with  your 
sorrow.  It  holds  the  only  true,  because  the  only  hu- 
man, philosophy  of  life.  It  interprets  your  deepest 
longing,  justifies  your  highest  aspiration,  and  inter- 
prets the  mystery  of  death.  Beyond  death,  it  lifts 
the  veil  of  eternal  things,  and  shows  you  the  eternal 
home.  Study  the  Bible,  believe  it,  cherish  it,  obey 
it,  venerate  it,  love  it,  —  it  is  Truth  itself  —  God's 
book. 

"Blessed  are  they  that  keep  his  testimonies,  and  that  seek 
him  with  the  whole  heart."  —  Psalms   119:2 


QUO   VADIS? 


QUO   VADIS? 

WHITHER  goest  thou?— The  question  of 
direction  is  everything  in  human  life.  The 
old  legend  has  it  that  Peter,  fleeing  from  martyrdom 
in  Rome,  having  safely  made  his  way  out  of  the  city, 
met  the  Lord  Jesus  going  toward  Rome.  In  aston- 
ishment he  asked,  "Quo  vadis,  Domine?"  —  "Lord, 
whither  goest  Thou?"  "Back  to  Rome  to  be  cruci- 
fied again  in  thy  stead,"  was  the  answer;  whereat 
Peter,  shamed  into  heroism,  went  back  to  death. 

Though  unhistoric,  the  story  holds  a  profound 
truth.  It  expresses  the  essential  distinction  between 
the  human  and  the  divine  theory  of  life.  The  ques- 
tion of  direction  —  that  is  the  vital  question.  Life 
is  like  the  ladder  that  fleeing  Jacob  saw,  the  bottom 
of  which  was  on  earth  and  the  top  in  heaven.  Call 
it  a  stair  to  make  it  level  to  our  modern  use.  It 
helps  us  to  see  that  the  question  of  direction  is  every- 
thing and  it  helps  us  to  see  also  how  we  deceive  our- 
selves. 

Two  men  are  on  that  ladder  of  life.  One  is  well 
up  toward  the  top.  He  is  clean  in  his  life,  self-dis- 
ciplined, holds  a  high  and  exacting  ethical  standard, 
is  kindly,  dutiful,  reverential,  a  valuable  asset  in  the 
sum  of  the  riches  of  any  society.    But  his  foot  rests 

193 


194  IN   MAN?    PULPITS 

lightly  on  the  next  step  below.  He  had  not  quite 
taken  that  step;  he  may  easily  reconsider  and,  turn- 
ing about,  plant  that  foot  on  the  next  step  above. 
Or,  he  may  actually  have  taken  the  first  downward 
step.  He  is  still  so  well  aloft  that,  to  those  below, 
that  first  step  down  passed  unnoticed.  He  may  think 
little  of  it  himself.  It  is  only  that  he  has  compro- 
mised with  the  keen  edge  of  his  best  convictions. 

Men  pass  that  fateful  first  compromise  with  scant 
notice  or  none.  How  differently  the  angels  must 
regard  it.  They  know  that  the  question  of  direction 
is  the  mighty  question.  They  are  not  much  impressed 
by  the  sophisms  which  justified  the  change  of  direc- 
tion. It  is  a  remark,  at  least  as  old  as  Bacon,  that 
"There  is  no  cause  so  bad  that  an  argument  may  not 
be  made  in  behalf  of  it." 

All  the  world  has  observed  how  corporations  con- 
stantly do  things  that  the  stockholders  as  individuals 
would  never  do.  An  agent  of  a  great  league  for  the 
defence  of  what  is  called  the  "Christian  Sabbath," 
told  me  the  most  generous  contributor  to  its  funds  was 
an  eminent  railroad  man,  whose  railway  trains  ran 
steadily  all  day  Sunday,  compelling  his  employees  to 
do  the  very  thing  he,  as  an  individual,  was  paying 
an  eloquent  agent  to  persuade  other  workingmen  not 
to  do.  It  is  easily  seen  that  this  man  was  an  arrant 
hypocrite;  what  we  do  not  see  is  the  way  in  which 
we  fool  ourselves  into  base  compromises.  In  some 
way,  though  higher  up  the  ladder,  we  may  yet  have 
taken  the  first  downward  step. 

But  away  below  us  is  a  fellow  man.    He  is  weak 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  195 

of  will,  badly  born,  morbid,  abnormal  in  many  ways. 
In  him  burn  the  baleful  fires  of  inherited  appetites. 
That  first  glass  of  wine,  which  to  you  was  normally 
distasteful,  so  that  you  had  to  acquire  a  liking  for 
it,  was  nectar  to  him.  He  is  shifty,  weakly  vain, 
irresolute.  But  he  has  had  a  vision  of  Christ.  In 
some  poor  dim  sense,  the  eternal  verities  have  become 
real  to  him.  He  has  faced  about,  and  though  still  far 
below  you  on  the  ladder  on  which  character  is  de- 
veloped, and  with  a  still  imperfect  sense  of  the  ideals 
which  to  you  are  commonplaces,  he  is  facing  up  and 
you  are  facing  down.  Some  day  you  two  will  stand 
for  a  moment  on  the  same  step,  and  then  you  will 
see  him  no  more,  for  your  face  is  set  downward  and 
his  has  already  caught  the  supernal  gleams. 

Toward  heaven  or  toward  hell?  This  question 
of  direction  is  the  vital,  the  determining  question. 
Lacordaire  said:  "We  need  a  divine  revelation  to 
tell  us  of  the  divine  love,  but  not  to  tell  us  that  for 
eternal  sin  there  must,  in  any  moral  universe,  be  an 
eternal  hell;  as  for  eternal  love  there  must  be  an 
eternal  heaven."  The  honest  observation  of  life 
teaches  every  one  of  us  that  sin,  loved  and  persisted 
in,  ends  badly  here  in  this  world.  It  is  idle  and 
irrational  trifling  to  pretend  that  it  can  end  otherwise 
in  the  prolongation  of  life  elsewhere.  I  long  ago 
ceased  to  argue  the  question  of  the  existence  of  hell. 
Sin,  loved,  persisted  in,  makes  hell  here  and  now; 
makes  home  hell;  makes  the  heart  hell.  The  man 
who  thinks  he  believes  that  the  incident  of  death, 
which  affects  a  change  of  place  but  not  of  nature,  will 


196  IN   MANY    PULPITS 

reverse  the  eternal  laws  of  cause  and  effect,  has  placed 
himself  outside  the  region  where  profitable  discus- 
sion is  carried  on.  The  essence  of  sin  is  self-will  in  a 
low  level,  regardless  of  the  rights  of  God  or  man  — 
and  that  is  hell  anywhere. 

In  like  manner,  the  fact  of  heaven  authenti- 
cates itself  in  any  reflecting  mind.  We  look  about 
us;  we  see  the  godly  and  the  good;  we  observe  that 
the  genuinely  godly  are  the  good,  —  the  terms  are 
indistinguishable;  and  we  notice  that  as  much  of 
heaven  as  we  ever  see  here,  we  see  in  the  tranquillity, 
the  gentleness,  the  blessed  helpfulness  of  the  lives  of 
the  godly  and  the  good.  So  much  of  heaven  as  touches 
our  poor  lives,  touches  us  through  them;  and  we 
know  —  with  a  knowledge  past  all  power  of  the 
sophist  to  disturb  —  that  somewhere  in  the  vast  uni- 
verse which  God  has  made,  there  must  be  a  heaven 
for  the  godly  and  the  good. 

When  the  merely  morally  good  claim  that  heaven, 
we  know  that  there  is  a  fatal  defect  in  their  title. 
Matthew  Arnold  was  a  man  of  excellent  morals, 
but  when  he  died,  a  gentle  lady,  who  knew  him  well, 
said:  "Arnold  would  not  like  God."  What  reason 
indeed  have  we  for  supposing  that  people  who  do  not 
like  God  in  this  life,  will  like  Him  in  the  next?  Many 
a  well  built  ship  has  gone  crashing  upon  the  rocks  of 
a  lee  shore,  not  because  it  was  a  bad  ship,  but  because 
it  was  not  headed  in  the  right  direction. 

Now  in  this  vital  matter  of  direction  heavenward 
or  hellward,  God  has  made  it  possible  for  every  hu- 
man being  to  know  with  absolute  clearness  whither 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  197 

he  is  bound.  The  whole  question  of  human  destiny, 
complete  in  its  details,  is  one  of  perfect  simplicity  in 
its  essence.    Human  destiny  turns  on  one  question: 

"What  think  ye  of  Christ?"  —  Matthew  22:42 

"But  as  many  as  received  him,  to  them  gave  he  power  to 
become  the  sons  of  God,"  —  John  1:12 

This  is  not  arbitrarily  so,  but  of  necessity.  I  will  try 
to  show  you  this.  The  phenomenon  of  the  Christ  is 
explicable  in  but  one  way: 

"That  God  was  in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world  unto  him- 
self,"—  //  Corinthians  y.ig 

The  Godhead  of  Christ  is  the  only  rational  explana- 
tion of  His  perfect  sinlessness,  His  perfect  wisdom. 
No  other  perfect  character  has  ever  appeared  among 
men,  nor  have  the  greatest  masters  of  the  creative 
imagination  ever  put  a  perfect  character  into  litera- 
ture. But  this  wonder  becomes  perfectly  reasonable 
when  we  say 

"that  God  was  in  Christ."  —  //  Corinthians  y.ig 

But  why  should  such  a  thing  as  the  incarnation  come 
to  be?  Again  no  other  answer  but  the  inspired  one  is 
conceivable : 

"God  was  in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself." 

—   //  Corinthians  y.ig 

Surely  the  world  needs  such  a  reconciliation,  and 


ids  EN   MANY   PULPITS 

how  else  could  it  be  effected?  To  be  reconciled  to 
God  it  is  essential  that  the  world,  which  has  lost  the 
knowledge  of  Go<.\.  should  again  see  Him;  and  God, 
who  is  a  Spirit,  could  come  into  the  vision  of  men  in 
110  other  way  but  by  living  among  them  a  human 
life. 

And  so  the  question  of  eternal  direction  is  of  neces- 
sity determined  by  the  individual  attitude  towards 
Christ.  The  sinner  humbly  conscious  of  his  unworthi- 
ness,  who  receives  Christ  as  Saviour,  master,  friend, 
though  still  most  imperfect,  has  chosen  the  heavenly 
things.  He  belongs  to  Christ,  is  in  Christ's  kingdom 
and  under  Christ's  healing.  His  name  is  in  the  Lamb's 
book  of  life.  He  is  one  of  the  joint  heirs.  He  is  the 
Father's  son.  His  way  heavenward  may  be  with 
many  a  stumble,  he  may  even  wander  far,  but  he 
has  a  Shepherd  who  goes 

"after  that  which  is  lost,  until  he  find  it."  —  Luke  15:4 

And  it  is  incontestable  that  the  men  and  women 
who  have  met  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  are  —  speaking 
in  the  large  and  by  immense  majorities  —  the  great- 
est of  all  visible  forces  working  for  righteousness  in 
the  practical  affairs  of  this  present  world.  Elimi- 
nate from  the  influences  which  make  for  social  order, 
for  clean  living,  for  sanctity  of  the  home,  for  kindli- 
ness and  helpfulness,  the  Christians  of  any  commu- 
nity and  what  would  remain?  We  will  not  say  that 
nothing  would  remain.  The  Christian  cause  is  fre- 
quently weakened  by  overstatement.    Good  citizens 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFTELD  199 

there  are  and  many  honest  men,  who  are  not  Chris- 
tians. Alas,  also,  many  who  are  professing  Christians, 
and  in  the  judgment  of  charity  really  Christians,  do 
not  count  in  the  battle  for  the  best. 

To  these  I  would  say,  There  are  two  possible 
theories  of  life.  We  may  say  of  each  day  as  it  comes: 
"This  is  my  own,  I  may  do  with  it  what  I  will,  so 
only  that  I  do  not  use  it  to  the  detriment  of  my 
fellow  man."  That  is  one  theory  of  life.  It  is  the 
usual  theory.  The  every  day  lives  of  the  millions  are 
lived  by  it.  Shakespeare  puts  it  into  the  mouth  of 
one  of  his  most  entertaining  characters:  "The  world 
is  my  oyster."  Life  may  be  blamelessly  lived  by  it, 
if  our  idea  of  blameless  living  is  only  not  to  do  harm. 

But  there  is  another  theory.  It  says:  "Life  is  a 
trust.  Not  one  of  these  wonderful  things  that  we 
call  minutes  belongs  to  me  in  the  sense  of  exclusive 
use.  I  am  one  of  millions.  I  am  my  brother's  keeper 
and  my  brother  is  my  keeper.  I  want  it  so,  and  am 
glad  we  are  members  one  of  another.  All  about  me 
are  human  hearts  less  blessed,  less  favored  than  mine. 
I  am  a  Christian,  therefore  I  may  draw  from  the 
divine  abundance  and  pour  it  into  these  maimed,  in- 
complete, shadowed  lives  about  me." 

That  is  Christ's  theory.  In  its  deepest  essence  the 
other  is  the  devil's  theory.    Quo  Vadis? 


THE   TEST   OF   TRUE 
SPIRITUALITY 


THE   TEST   OF   TRUE 
SPIRITUALITY 

TWO  Epistles  are  notable  for  the  severity  of  their 
tests  of  Christian  profession  —  James  and  I 
John.  James  is  concerned  with  the  reality  of  the 
professor's  faith,  John  with  the  reality  of  the  be- 
liever's experience,  that  is,  of  any  pretensions  which 
he  may  set  up  to  spirituality  of  life.  The  key  phrase 
of  James  is:  -  "Yea,  a  man  may  say," —  ;  the  key 
phrase  of  this  aspect  of  I  John  is:  "If  we  say"  or 
"He  that  saith."  Profession  is  easy,  but  false  profes- 
sion is  supremely  dangerous.  The  man  who  is  living 
in  sin  and  unbelief,  and  knows  it,  is  fairly  open  to 
the  gospel  appeal;  but  the  man  who  in  self-de- 
ception answers  the  gospel  appeal  by  saying:  "But 
I  am  a  Christian,"  is  in  the  most  dangerous  place 
conceivable. 

If  one  be  a  Christian,  there  is  always  the  grave 
danger  of  living  in  mere  positional  truth  on  the  one 
hand,  or  of  assuming  a  false  spirituality  on  the  other. 
In  the  first  case  one  would  resemble  a  noble  who 
should  exalt  his  mere  patent  of  nobility  while  living 
most  ignobly.    In  the  second  case,  one  falls  into  the 

203 


204  IN   MANY    PULPITS 

snare  of  spiritual  pride  based  on  some  supposed  ex- 
perience  or  attainment. 

James  exposes  a  falsi'  or  mistaken  profession  of 
faith;  John  a  spurious  spirituality.  This  exposure 
John  effects  by  seven  tests  applied  to  profession. 
Let  us  look  at  these. 

Ihe  fust  applies  to  the  profession  of  fellowship 
with  God. 

"If  we  say  that  we  have  fellowship  with  him,"  —  /  John  1:6 

The  test  is  severe  but  simple.  To  such  a  profession 
he  says  in  effect,  "Where  do  you  walk?"  The  "walk" 
is  the  daily  life.  Now,  says  John,  there  are  two 
places  and  but  two  where  a  believer  may  walk  — 
darkness  and  light.  Light  is  where  God  is  and  what 
God  is: 

"in  him  is  no  darkness  at  all."  —  /  John  1:5 

Observe  it  is  not  how  we  walk,  but  where  we  walk. 
David,  in  the  fifty-first  Psalm,  all  broken  and  crushed 
with  the  sense  of  his  sin,  is  in  the  very  whitest  of 
the  light,  for  he  is  saying: 

"Have  mercy  upon  me,  O  God,"  —  Psalms  51:1 
He  is  saying: 

"Wash  me  throughly  from  mine  iniquity,  and  cleanse  me 
from  my  sin."  —  Psalms  51:2 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  205 

He  is  saying: 

"Against  thee,  thee  only,  have  I  sinned,  and  done  this  evil 
in  thy  sight:  that  thou  mightest  be  justified  when  thou 
speakest,  and  be  clear  when  thou  judgest."  —  Psalms  51:4 

In  the  light,  though,  his  whole  talk  is  of  his  sins. 

Now  see  a  man  in  darkness  —  a  good,  moral  man 
too,  and  a  believer  in  God: 

"The  Pharisee  stood  and  prayed  thus  with  himself,  God,  I 
thank  thee,  that  I  am  not  as  other  men"  —  Luke  18:11 

That  man  in  the  very  act  of  prayer  is  in  thick  dark- 
ness. 

To  walk  in  the  light  is  not  to  walk  sinlessly,  but 
it  is  to  bring  the  sin  instantly  to  God.  It  is  not  to 
serve  perfectly,  but  it  is  to  bring  the  imperfection 
to  Him.  It  is  to  live  the  daily  life  in  His  presence. 
Now,  if  we  say  that  we  have  fellowship  with  Him,  and 
have  two  lives,  a  religious  life  for  Him  and  a  secular 
life  for  ourselves,  we  walk  in  darkness,  and  our  pro- 
fession of  fellowship  is  a  lie,  John  says. 

John's  second  test  strikes  down  at  one  blow  the 
most  subtle  of  the  errors  into  which  men  have  fallen 
concerning  this  most  vital  subject  of  holiness  —  the 
notion  that  by  regeneration,  or  by  "the  baptism 
with  the  Spirit"  or  by  the  "baptism  with  fire,"  or 
some  other  experience,  the  old  Adamic  nature  has 
been  eradicated,  so  that  such  an  one  no  longer  has 
sin  as  an  indwelling  fact.  As  to  this  John's  word  is 
clear: 


S06  IN   1N1ANY   PTTLPITS 

"It  we  say  that  we  have  no  sin,  we  deceive  ourselves,  and 
the  truth  is  not  in  us."  —  /  John  i:S 

Xote  carefully,  John  docs  not  say  that  those  who 
make  that  profession  are  not  saved.  What  he  says  is 
they  are  deceived,  because  they  are  not  judging 
the  matter  by  revealed  truth,  but  by  some  supposed 
experience  of  feeling.  The  underlying  rule  here  is 
one  which  if  duly  heeded  will  save  the  child  of  God 
from  every  excess  of  fanaticism.  It  is  —  Judge  ex- 
perience by  the  Word,  not  the  Word  by  experience, 

"For  the  word  of  God  is  quick,  and  powerful,  and  sharper 
than  any  twoedged  sword,  piercing  even  to  the  dividing 
asunder  of  soul  and  spirit,  and  of  the  joints  and  marrow, 
and  is  a  discerner  of  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the 
heart."  —  Hebrews  4:12 

Beloved,  the  old  nature  unchanged  and  unchangeable 
is  within;  all  victory  lies  in  the  recognition  of  that 
fact,  and  then  in  self-distrustful  resort  to  the  pro- 
vision of  grace  for  that  fact  —  the  indwelling  Spirit. 
So  long  as  we  walk  in  the  Spirit  we  do  not 

"fulfil  the  lust  of  the  flesh."  —  Galatians  5:16 

"For  the  flesh  lusteth  against  the  Spirit,  and  the  Spirit 
against  the  flesh;  and  these  are  contrary  the  one  to  the 
other:    so  that  ye  cannot  do  the  things  that  ye  would." 

—  Galatians  5:17 

How  subversive  of  this  constant  watchfulness,  how 
sure  to  end  —  as  all  experience  shows  —  in  humili- 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  207 

ating  defeat,  is  the  notion  that  the  flesh  has  been 
eradicated. 

And,  as  closely  connected  with  that  error,  is  the 
one  to  which  John  opposes  his  third  test,  the  error 
of  sinless  perfection  in  the  flesh. 

"If  we  say  that  we  have  not  sinned,"  —  /  John  1:10 

Mark  well,  this  message  is  to  the  little  children  of 
the  Father.  We  have  not  here  a  word  to  the  self- 
righteous  sinner  but  to  the  presumptuous  child  of 
God.  And  it  is  not,  "  If  we  say  that  we  have  not 
sinned  in  the  past  ";  it  is  a  present  word,  a  word 
for  every  moment  of  our  lives.  If  we  say  right  in 
the  midst  of  our  best  prayer,  of  our  purest  aspiration, 
that  "We  have  not  sinned"  —  What? 

"We  make  him  a  liar,"  —  /  John  1:10 

Are  we  ready  for  that?  Do  we  want  to  do  that? 
But  how  can  a  little  child  of  the  Father  possibly  find 
himself  in  such  a  case?  For  the  old  reason  —  in- 
attention to  the  Word: 

"His  word  is  not  in  us."  —  /  John  1:10 

when  we  say  such  things.  And  His  Word  is  uncom- 
promising about  sins.  His  grace  has  made  a  way  of 
forgiveness  and  cleansing  for  confessing  children  who 
sin,  but  that  Word  will  never  permit  us  to  lower  the 
standard  as  to  what  sin  is.  Have  we  forgotten  that 
an  offering  was  provided  for  sin?     Have  we  forgotten 


206  IN  MANY   PULPITS 

that  in  His  eyes,  the  very  heavens  are  not  clean?  No, 
we  need  this  humbling  Word,  this  searching  test. 

The  fourth  test  applies  to  profession  of  a  different 
kind,  to  the  claim  to  intimate  acquaintanceship  with 
God. 

"He  that  saith,  I  know  him,"  —  /  John  2:4 

Bear  with  a  cautionary  word.  Knowing  about  God 
is  erne  thing:  knowing  God  is  quite  another.  Job's 
confession  illustrates  this: 

"I  have  heard  of  thee  by  the  hearing  of  the  ear:" 

—  Job  42:5 

and  upon  the  hearing  there  had  come  to  Job  a  true 
faith,  a  faith  which  had  withstood  tremendous 
shocks.  Well,  we  all  begin  there.  Our  saving  faith 
is  based  on  testimony.    But  Job  goes  on: 

"but  now  mine  eye  seeth   thee."  —  Job   42:5 

A  very  different  matter.  Are  we  then  content  to 
remain  with  a  hearsay  knowledge  of  God?  By  no 
means.  In  the  17th  chapter  of  John,  our  Lord  tells 
us  that  the  ultimate  end  of  the  gift  of  eternal  life 
is  that  we  may  know  Him.  He  is  our  Father,  and 
can  our  hearts  rest  with  anything  short  of  that  per- 
sonal knowledge  of  Him  of  which  John  speaks?  At 
this  point,  John's  test  of  spirituality  is  not  to  dis- 
courage a  true  knowledge  of  God,  but  to  expose  a 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  209 

false  assumption  of  such  knowledge.  What  is  that 
test? 

"He  that  saith,  I  know  him,  and  keepeth  not  his  com- 
mandments, is  a  liar,"  —  /  John  2:4 

Does  John  mean  to  put  us  back  under  law?  Not  at 
all.  He  speaks  in  his  characteristic  way,  meaning  he 
who  is  living  outside  the  known  will  of  God,  and 
says  "I  know  God,"  is  a  liar.  It  is  not  sinless  obedi- 
ence, but  it  is  a  heart  set  to  live  in  the  known  will 
of  God.  Such  a  one  will  have  many  a  failure,  but, 
though  often  stumbling,  he  will  keep  on.  The  needle 
in  the  compass  is  often  deflected  by  influences  about 
it  —  it  trembles  and  is  unquiet,  but  it  resumes  its 
steady  alignment  with  the  object  of  its  devotion. 
Now  a  life  aligned  to  the  will  of  God,  is  in  the  way  to 
know  God.  It  is  not  an  arbitrary  requirement.  In 
no  other  way,  to  no  other  man,  can  God  reveal  Him- 
self. Paul's  prayer  for  the  Colossians  runs  along 
that  road: 

"That  ye  might  be  filled  with  the  knowledge  of  his  will 
in  all  wisdom  and  spiritual  understanding; 
.  .  .  increasing  in  the  knowledge  of  God;" 

—  Colossians  i:g,  10 

John's  fifth  test  of  the  profession  of  spirituality 
of  life,  also  applies  to  the  walk. 

"He  that  saith  he  abideth  in  him,  ought  himself  also  so 
to  walk,  even  as  he  walked."  —  /  John  2:6 


210  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

Upon  a  superficial  view,  this  seems  most  discourag- 
ing. What  is  it  "to  abide"  in  Him?  Many  earnest 
souls  have  known  much  distress  just  here.  They 
have  been  told  that  "to  abide"  in  Him  means  to  be 
always  occupied  with  Him.  Now  I  make  bold  to 
say,  this  is  an  unattainable  counsel  of  perfection. 

We  are  in  the  world,  and  however  sedulous  we  may 
be  to  keep  the  world  out  of  us,  we  are  charged  with 
engrossing  duties  calling  for  the  utmost  concentra- 
tion of  mind,  heart  and  hand.  We  cannot  be  in 
conscious  constant  occupation  with  Him.  I  do  not 
so  understand  that  great  word. 

For  a  moment  think  of  that  other  phrase  —  "in 
Him."  What  does  that  mean?  Ephesians  explains 
it.  "In  Christ  Jesus"  is  the  sphere  of  the  Christian's 
life.  That  is  where  grace  has  put  him.  We  have 
not  to  concern  ourselves  about  getting  that  place: 
we  are  there.  Now,  what  is  "abiding  in  Him?"  Why, 
simply  having  nothing  apart  from  Him,  living  in  the 
sphere  of  the  things  which  interest  Christ;  bringing 
Him  into  the  sphere  of  all  our  necessary  occupations, 
joys  and  innocent  pleasures  down  here;  having  no 
business  in  which  He  is  not  senior  Partner;  no  wed- 
ding feast  or  other  feast  at  which  He  is  not  chief 
Guest,  no  failures  which  are  not  brought  to  Christ  for 
forgiveness  and  cleansing. 

What  is  John's  test  of  such  a  life?  In  degree, 
though  not  as  perfectly,  it  will  be  a  walk  even  as 
He  walked.  It  will  lead  along  the  same  road;  it  will 
encounter  the  same  trials,  enlist  the  same  sympathies. 
Apply  the  test;   it  is  easy,  if  humbling. 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  211 

"He  that  saith  he  is  in  the  light,  and  hateth  his  brother,  is 
in  darkness  even  until  now."  —  /  John  2:g 

God  is  love  as  surely  as  God  is  light.  The  light  and 
the  love  are  one.  Then,  how  impossible  to  walk  with 
God  —  for  that  is  to  walk  in  the  light  —  and  have 
hatred  for  one  of  the  other  of  God's  children.  Re- 
member, John  speaks  in  an  absolute  way  of  these 
things.  It  is  not  what  we  may  call  our  feeling  for 
our  brother,  "dislike"  or  "instinctive  aversion"  or 
"annoyance"  —  John  has  one  name  for  the  insincere 
evasions  —  hate.    That  is  John's  word. 

Think  of  this.  Is  there  some  brother  against  whom 
we  have  taken  up  a  breath  of  accusation  which  we 
have  whispered  about  to  his  detriment?  Is  there 
one  whose  ways  annoy  us  so  that  we  avoid  him?  Is 
there  one  whose  habits,  though  within  his  liberty  in 
Jesus  Christ,  do  not  happen  to  be  the  habits  in  which 
we  have  been  more  narrowly  reared  and  against 
which  we  whisper?  My  friends,  till  we  are  cleansed 
in  the  laver,  till  our  feet  have  been  in  His  blessed 
hand,  let  us  not  talk  of  walking  in  the  light.  So  we 
come  to  John's  final  test: 

"If  a  man  say,  I  love  God,  and  hateth  his  brother,  he  is  a 
liar."  —  /  John  4:20 

With  John,  "love"  is  more  than  sentiment,  more 
than  a  feeling.  It  is  a  principle  which  moves  the 
hand  and  opens  the  purse.  If  I  am  not  my  brother's 
keeper,  if  I  am  not,  in  the  measure  of  my  power,  my 


212  IN    MANY   PULPITS 

brother's  providence  wisdom  for  his  folly,  a  hiding- 
place  for  his  shame,  open-handed  for  his  need,  wet- 
eyed  for  his  sorrow,  glad  in  his  joy,  —  oh,  then  let 
me  at  least  spare  him  the  insincerity  of  my  pro- 
fession, "I  love  God." 


SERVING   CHRIST 


SERVING   CHRIST 


After  these  things  Jesus  shewed  himself  again  to  the  disciples 

at  the  sea  of  Tiberias ;   and  on  this  wise  shewed  he  himself. 

There    were    together    Simon    Peter,    and    Thomas    called 

Didymus,  and  Nathanael  of  Cana  in  Galilee,  and  the  sons  of 

Zebedee,  and  two  others  of  his  disciples. 

Simon  Peter  saith  unto  them,  I  go  a  fishing.     They  say  unto 

him,  We  also  go  with  thee.     They  went  forth,  and  entered 

into  a  ship  immediately ;   and  that  night  they  caught  nothing. 

But  when  the  morning  was  now  come,  Jesus  stood  on  the 

shore:  but  the  disciples  knew  not  that  it  was  Jesus. 

Then  Jesus  saith  unto  them,  Children,  have  ye  any  meat? 

They  answered  him,  No. 

And  he  said  unto  them,  Cast  the  net  on  the  right  side  of 

the  ship,  and  ye  shall  find.     They  cast  therefore,  and  now 

they  were  not  able  to  draw  it  for  the  multitude  of  fishes. 

Therefore  that  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved  saith  unto  Peter, 

It  is  the  Lord.     Now  when  Simon  Peter  heard  that  it  was 

the  Lord,  he  girt  his  fisher's  coat  unto  him  (for  he  was  naked) 

and  did  cast  himself  into  the  sea. 

And  the  other  disciples  came  in  a  little  ship;    (for   they 

were  not  far  from  land,  but  as  it  were  two  hundred  cubits,) 

dragging  the  net  with  fishes. 

As  soon  as  they  were  come  to  land,  they  saw  a  fire  of  coals 

there,  and  fish  laid  thereon,  and  bread. 

Jesus  saith  unto  them,  Bring  of  the  fish  which  ye  have 

now  caught. 

Simon  Peter  went  up,  and  drew  the  net  to  land  full  of 

great  fishes,  an  hundred  and  fifty  and  three:   and  for  all 

there  were  so  many,  yet  was  not  the  net  broken. 

Jesus  saith  unto  them,  Come  and  dine.    And  none  of  the 

215 


216  IN   MANY  PULPITS 

disciples  durst  ask  him,  Who  art  thou?  knowing  that  it  was 
the   lord. 

Jesus  then  comcth,  and  takcth  bread,  and  giveth  them,  and 

fish  likewise. 

This  is  now  the  third  time  that  Jesus  shewed  himself  to 

his  disciples,  after  that  he  was  risen  from  the  dead. 

So  when  they  had  dined,  Jesus  saith  to  Simon  Peter,  Simon, 

son  of  Jonas,  Invest  thou  me  more  than  these?    He  saith  unto 

him.  Yea,  Lord;   thou  knowest  that  I  love  thee.    He  saith  unto 

him,  Feed  my  lambs. 

He  saith  to  him  again  the  second  time,  Simon,  son  of  Jonas, 

lovest  thou  me?    He  saith  unto  him,  Yea,  Lord;   thou  knowest 

that  I  love  thee.    He  saith  unto  him,  Feed  my  sheep. 

He  saith  unto  him  the  third   time,   Simon,  son  of  Jonas, 

lovest  thou  me?     Peter  was  grieved  because  he  said  unto 

him  the  third  time,  Lovest  thou  me?    And  he  said  unto  him, 

Lord,  thou  knowest  all  things;   thou  knowest  that  I  love  thee. 

Jesus  saith  unto  him,  Feed  my  sheep. 

Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  When  thou  wast  young, 

thou  girdedst  thyself,  and  walkedst  whither  thou  wouldest: 

but  when  thou  shalt  be  old,  thou  shalt  stretch  forth  thy 

hands,  and  another  shall  gird  thee,  and  carry  thee  whither 

thou  wouldest  not. 

This  spake  he,  signifying  by  what  death  he  should  glorify 

God.     And  when  he  had  spoken  this,  he  saith  unto  him, 

Follow  me. 

Then  Peter,  turning  about,  seeth  the  disciple  whom  Jesus 

loved  following;    which  also  leaned  on  his  breast  at  supper, 

and  said,  Lord,  which  is  he  that  betrayeth  thee? 

Peter  seeing  him  saith  to  Jesus,  Lord,  and  what  shall  this 

man  do? 

Jesus  saith  unto  him,  If  I  will  that  he  tarry  till  I  come, 

what  is  that  to  thee?  follow  thou  me. 

Then  went  this  saying  abroad  among  the  brethren,   that 

that  disciple  should  not  die:   yet  Jesus  said  not  unto  him,  He 

shall  not  die;    but,  If  I  will  that  he  tarry  till  I  come,  what 

is  that  to  thee? 

This  is  the  disciple  which  testifieth  of  these  things,  and 

wrote  these  things:    and  we  know  that  his  testimony  is  true. 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  217 

And  there  are  also  many  other  things  which  Jesus  did,  the 
which,  if  they  should  be  written  everyone,  I  suppose  that 
even  the  world  itself  could  not  contain  the  books  that  should 
be  written.    Amen."  —  John  21:1-25 

THE  twenty-first  chapter  of  John  is  not  so  much 
an  epilogue  of  the  Gospel,  —  although  it  is  that, 
—  as  an  introduction  to  the  Book  of  Acts,  which 
gives  the  essential  facts  concerning  right  Christian 
service  in  this  dispensation.  It  is  a  chapter  which 
has  to  do  with  service  —  service  to  the  risen  Lord, 
and  with  suffering  as  well.  This  once  seen,  we  ask  if 
there  is  any  single  word  or  phrase  that  will  give  a 
keynote  to  the  new  discipleship?  I  think  we  shall 
find  it  in  the  phrase, 

"If  I  will."  —  John  21:22 

And  I  believe  the  words  "If  I  will"  give  the  key- 
note to  the  whole  chapter  considered  as  conditioning 
the  service  of  the  Christian  to  the  risen  Lord.  The 
central  condition  of  that  service  is  hearty  acceptance 
of  the  will  of  Christ  over  the  service  of  His  saints,  a 
will  which  extends  to  the  minutest  detail  of  that 
service,  leaving  absolutely  nothing  to  choice,  incli- 
nation or  self-will. 

As  illustrating  that  service,  we  have  in  this  chapter 
six  wonderful  pictures,  each  distinct,  each  drawn  by 
the  Master's  hand,  and  each  having  a  wonderful 
teaching. 

The  first  of  these  is  a  picture  of  service  in  self- 
will,  and  its  results.    It  is  in  the  first  three  verses. 


218  IN  MANY  PULPITS 

■•Simon  Peter  saith  unto  them,  I  go  a  fishing."  —  John  21:3 

Now,  if  Peter  knew  anything  he  knew  he  was  a 
servant  of  the  risen  Lord.  Already  the  risen  Christ 
had  appeared  twice  to  his  disciples.  Already  He  had 
breathed  on  them  and  said, 

"Receive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost:"  —  John  20:22 

so  that  from  that  moment,  those  disciples  were  indwelt 
by  the  Spirit  and  therefore  had  spiritual  discernment 
and  were  in  a  position  to  be  taught  the  things  con- 
cerning the  kingdom.  The  Lord  had  been  with  them, 
teaching  them  of  this  higher  service;  He  had  not 
appointed  any  meeting  like  this  by  the  lake.  He  had 
told  them  to  tarry  in  Jerusalem,  but  the  one  thing 
that  the  natural  man,  the  flesh,  can  not  do  is  to  keep 
quiet.  We  can  not  wait  for  some  clear  word  from 
the  Lord.  The  Master  had  appeared  and  told  them 
wonderful  things,  and  then  He  had  disappeared  again. 
As  the  hours  went  by,  possibly  the  days,  no  new  word 
came  from  the  Master.  Peter  became  restless. 
Naturally  he  thought  of  his  old  trade: 

"I  go  a  fishing."  —  John  21:3 

Mere  waiting  for  orders  is  intolerable.  So  he  goes 
fishing.  And  immediately  we  see  one  result  of  that 
kind  of  activity;  we  see  human  leadership  in  place  of 
divine  leadership.  The  others  —  perhaps  the  kind 
of  men  who  are  easily  led,  and  are  uncomfortable 
unless  they  have  a  leader  —  immediately  said, 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  219 

"We  also  go  with  thee."  —  John  21:3 

Ah,  how  Christ's  service  is  marred  by  strong-willed 
men ;  men  who  will  not  wait  for  a  word  of  direction, 
nor  a  suggestion  from  the  mighty  Master,  but  serve  in 
self-will.  Note  the  result.  All  of  these  men  were 
fishermen  who  knew  the  waters  of  that  lake  perfectly, 
and  they  went  out  and  fished  all  night  but,  —  "caught 
nothing." 

Then  very  gently  came  the  test.  These  things  are 
always  tested.  In  the  morning  the  Lord  is  there  on 
the  bank.  Remember,  He  has  purchased  these  men 
with  His  blood;  they  have  no  right  to  any  inde- 
pendent service;  they  ought  to  have  changed  self- 
will  for  His  will.  The  Master  who  has  bought  them, 
and  who  is  entitled  to  every  activity  of  their  lives, 
stands  on  the  shore  and  asks, 

"Children,  have  ye  any  meat?    They  answered  him,  No." 

—  John  21:5 

That  is  the  outcome  of  choosing  our  way  and  place 
in  service.  Is  not  this  the  easy,  natural,  unforced 
explanation  of  the  lack  of  fruitfulness  in  so  much  of 
so-called  Christian  activity? 

But,  we  say,  we  are  not  told  to  be  successful;  we 
are  told  only  to  be  faithful.  There  is  a  little  grain 
of  truth  in  that,  and  yet  I  never  find  Jesus  commend- 
ing fruitless  service.    I  find  Him  saying, 

"I  have  chosen  you  and  ordained  you,  that  ye  should  go 


220  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

and    bring    forth    fruit,   and   that   your   fruit  should   re- 
main:" —  John  15:10 

If  there  is  no  result  whatever  from  patient  and  long- 
continued  service,  there  is  something  wrong  about  it 
somewhere.  God  means  that  we  shall  have  fruit  for 
our  toil.  We  say,  "O,  it  is  a  time  of  seed-sowing, 
and  the  harvest  will  come  after  a  time,"  and  we  let 
ourselves  down  easily  and  make  no  searching  exami- 
nation into  the  cause  of  our  failure.  Faithfulness  is 
a  great  virtue,  but  it  is  a  greater  thing  to  start  right, 
and  to  be  sure  that  we  have  the  "I  will"  of  the  Lord 
before  we  undertake  anything  for  Him. 

For  our  second  picture  we  have  Christ-directed 
service  and  its  results.  The  moment  He  tells  these 
fishermen,  who  knew  all  about  fishing,  where  to  cast 
the  net,  the  net  is  full!    I  need  not  comment  on  that. 


"Cast  the  net  on  the  right  side  of  the  ship,  and  ye  shall 
find."  —  John  21:6 


O,  the  blessedness  of  Christ-directed  service!  He 
does  not  mean  that  we  shall  have  no  result  from  our 
prayers  and  our  toil;  and  if  we  see  no  result,  one 
fair  presumption  is,  that  we  may  be  doing  something 
which  we  have  chosen  to  do  ourselves  and  not  some- 
thing which  the  Lord  gave  us  to  do.  That  full  net  is 
a  wonderful  picture. 

Now  we  come  to  our  third  picture ;  —  the  break- 
fast by  the  lakeside,  where  the  laborers  and  the  Lord 
feast  together.    The  legend  written  under  this  pic- 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.  SCOFIELD  221 

ture  is:  "The  risen  Christ  supplies  the  needs  of  His 
servants." 

They  had  caught  nothing  that  night,  yet  Jesus, 
knowing  their  need  beforehand,  with  hands  that  had 
been  pierced  for  them,  had  prepared  breakfast  for 
them  there  on  the  shore  of  the  lake.  It  was  He  who 
said, 

"Come  and  dine."  —  John  21:12 

They  had  been  serving  in  self-will,  yet  the  grace  of 
the  Lord  would  not  leave  them  breakfastless.  He 
loved  them.  He  meant  to  show  them  the  right  path 
of  service.  How  I  wish  we  could  get  that  thoroughly 
settled  as  servants  of  the  Lord  —  that  the  Lord  is 
enough  for  all  the  needs  of  His  servants.  We  do 
not  need  any  source  of  supply,  even  in  material 
things,  beside  the  Lord.  O,  that  we  had  faith  to 
absolutely  trust  Him,  and  then  leave  it  to  Him  to 
minister  to  our  need  in  whatever  way  He  pleases! 

Let  us  pass  on  to  our  fourth  picture  —  our  risen 
Master's  colloquy  with  Peter. 

We  cannot  misread  the  legend  beneath  this  picture. 
It  is:  "Love  of  Christ  the  only  right  motive."  Note 
in  passing  an  important  subtitle  to  this  picture.  It 
is:  "The  risen  Christ  chooses  whom  He  will  to  serve 
Him."  But  that  is  but  a  detail  of  the  picture,  the 
central  meaning  of  which  is  that  love  of  Himself  is 
the  only  motive  which  gives  to  service  a  value  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Lord.  Three  times  our  Lord  asks 
Peter  if  he  loves  Him,  and  in  answer  to  Peter's  con- 


IN   MANY   PULPITS 

Eession  that  he  docs  love  Him,  and  that  the  Lord 
knows  that  he  loves  Him,  the  Lord  thrice  commissions 
Peter  for  service. 

"Lovesl  thou  me?     Feed  my  lambs."  —  John  21:15 
"Feed  my  sheep."  —  John  21:16,  17 

Think  a  little  of  this.  We  sometimes  pray  that  we 
may  have  a  love  for  souls;  we  even  pray  that  we 
may  have  "a  great  burden"  for  souls.  I  have  known 
young  people,  who  are  preparing  for  missionary  work, 
to  pray  that  they  might  have  a  great  love  for  the  peo- 
ple in  Africa,  or  whatever  the  chosen  field  might  be. 
But  Peter  is  not  asked  if  he  loves  the  lambs  and  if 
he  loves  the  sheep.  You  can  see  how  that  motive 
would  break  down.    The  question  is, 

"Lovest  thou  me?"  —  John  21:16 

Then  feed  "my  lambs,"  "my  sheep."  And  any  other 
motive  in  service  is  not,  with  Christ,  a  sufficient 
motive. 

How  many  of  us,  I  wonder,  are  serving  out  of  mere 
denominational  loyalty  and  zeal,  or  out  of  our  deep 
interest  in  some  organization  in  which  we  are  officers 
or  members?  I  believe  there  is  great  need  for  deep 
heart-searching  just  at  this  point.  Is  the  central 
motive  of  our  service  personal  love  for  Him?  And  is 
this  the  one  test  which  we  propose  to  ourselves  every 
day  in  our  service? 

And  now  we  stand  before  the  fifth  picture.    Again 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  223 

the  central  figures  are  the  risen  Christ  and  Peter. 
But  now  the  Lord  is  speaking,  not  of  Peter's  service, 
but  of  its  end  in  martyrdom.  What  is  it  called? 
"The  risen  Christ  apportions  suffering  and  death." 

I  do  not  believe  that  servants  of  the  Lord  die 
accidentally.  I  do  not  believe  that  death  "happens" 
to  a  child  of  God. 

"When  thou  wast  young,  thou  girdedst  thyself,  and  walkedst 
whither  thou  wouldest:  but  when  thou  shalt  be  old,  thou 
shalt  stretch  forth  thy  hands,  and  another  shall  gird  thee, 
and  carry  thee  whither  thou  wouldest  not.  —  John  21:18 

None  of  us  would  choose  suffering ;  none  of  us  would 
choose  a  martyr's  death ;  and  yet  Peter,  willful  as  he 
was,  cowardly  as  he  had  been,  would  yield  himself 
to  that. 

"This  spake  he,  signifying  by  what  death  he  should  glorify 
God."  —  John  2i:ig 

And  now  one  last  picture  in  this  wonderful  gallery: 
Service  is  personal. 

Peter  would  like  to  have  made  it,  so  to  speak,  a 
fellowship  matter,  a  corporate  matter.  Seeing  John, 
he  said, 

"Lord,  and  what  shall  this  man  do?"  —  John  21:21 

And  in  effect  the  Lord  replied,  "Peter,  that  is  none 
of  your  business"  — 

"If  I  will  that  he  tarry,"  —  John  21:22 


224  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

if  I  will  that  he  catch  fish,  if  I  will  that  he  tend 
sheep  and  lambs,  if  1  will  that  he  suffer,  if  I  will  that 
he  die  — 

"what  is  that  to  thee?  follow  thou  me."  —  John  21:22 

So  with  all  service.  We  are  not  to  take  our  word 
of  command  at  second  or  third  hand.  Oh,  let  us  get 
into  right  personal  touch  with  Him!  There  is  a 
strange,  sweet  liberty  in  this  kind  of  service.  Christ 
will  choose  His  own  servants,  very  strangely  some- 
times, and  the  motive  in  service  that  is  pleasing  to 
Him  is  love  for  Him.  Yet  can  we  rest  under  all  the 
trials  that  come,  in  the  consciousness  that  our  suf- 
ferings, even  our  very  death  in  the  path  of  obedience, 
are  appointed  for  us  by  Him  and  are  not  accidents  — 
that,  like  John,  we  are  immortal  until  our  work  is 
done. 


OUT   OF   BONDAGE 


OUT   OF   BONDAGE 

"If  the  Son  therefore  shall  make  you  free,  ye  shall  be  free 
indeed."  —  John  8:36 

THE  most  widespread  and  universal  of  the  de- 
lusions current  among  men  is  the  notion  that 
they  are  free.  No  imputation  is  more  quickly,  more 
vehemently  resented  than  the  imputation  of  slavery, 
of  bondage.  There  are  no  free  men.  Millions,  thank 
God,  are  in  the  process  of  emancipation,  but  none 
are  yet  completely  emancipated.  Paul  told  the 
Roman  chief  captain  that  he  was  born  free.  In  the 
limited  sense  in  which  he  used  the  word  it  was  true; 
Paul  was  born  a  Roman  citizen.  But  in  every  other 
important  sense  the  words  were  not  true,  as  Paul 
would  have  been  the  first  to  admit.  Like  all  of  us, 
Paul  inherited  chains.  For  centuries  that  mysterious 
force,  heredity,  had  been  silently,  invisibly,  prepar- 
ing bonds  for  him  —  bonds  for  spirit,  soul,  body. 
Every  soul  born  into  the  world  is  born  into  an  in- 
visible net  which  the  centuries  have  been  weaving 
for  him.  Its  meshes  are  race  predisposition,  race 
habit,  family  habit,  family  sin,  family  religion. 

Think  of  the  men  to  whom  Christ  was  talking  when 
He  uttered  the  words  of  our  text: 

227 


K8  IN  MANY  PULPITS 

"We  In-  Abraham's  seed  and  were  never  in  bondage  to  any 
man:"  —  John   S:jj 

They  spoke  honestly  enough,  as  we  do  when  we 
boast  of  our  freedom,  but  at  that  moment  they  were 
in  political,  intellectual  and  religious  bondage.  Polit- 
ically, they  were  under  bondage  to  an  assortment 
of  despots  from  Caesar  down  to  Herod  and  Pilate. 
Morally,  they  were  the  slaves  of  race  pride,  of  prej- 
udice, of  ignorance,  of  habit,  of  sin,  of  self-will. 
Religiously,  they  were  the  slaves  of  traditionalism,  of 
bigotry,  of  formalism. 

Is  our  case  better?  Very  slightly.  Theoretically, 
we  are  free  politically.  Actually,  we  are  the  slaves 
of  party,  of  the  caucus,  of  the  bosses  and  the  trusts. 
The  very  minute  I  give  over  into  the  hands  of  a  con- 
vention the  right  to  formulate  my  political  creed  I  am 
no  longer  absolutely  free.  When  I  allow  a  habit  to 
dominate  my  life,  I  am  no  longer  free.  When  I  allow 
pride,  or  vanity,  or  ambition,  or  pleasure  to  control 
my  life,  I  am  the  basest  of  slaves.  The  very  fact  that 
I  do  not,  can  not,  cease  from  sin  proclaims  me  a  slave. 
Jesus  Christ  came  into  a  world  of  slaves. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  His  first  formal  an- 
nouncement of  His  mission  on  earth  touched  life  at 
that  very  point.  In  the  synagogue  at  Nazareth  there 
was  handed  to  Him  the  book  of  the  Prophet  Isaiah, 
and  he  found  the  place  where  it  was  written: 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  229 

"The  spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me,  because  he  hath  anointed 
me  to  preach  .  .  .  deliverance  to  the  captives," 

—  Luke  4:18 

Jesus  Christ  has,  indeed,  a  various  work  in  the  world, 
and  He  touches  human  life  at  every  point  of  hu- 
manity's need,  but  we  single  out  for  our  meditation 
this  morning  Christ  the  Emancipator. 

He  begins  with  our  slavery  to  sin.  Here  He  en- 
counters an  initial  difficulty.  The  man  whom  He 
would  set  free  is  not  only  a  slave,  but  a  condemned 
slave.  He  is  a  slave,  exposed  for  sale,  but  with  a 
halter  around  his  neck.  Who  will  redeem  him?  Nay, 
rather,  who  can  redeem  him?  Not  his  brother  man, 
for  he,  too,  is  a  slave  with  a  halter  around  his  own 
neck.  What  is  the  price  of  this  slave  —  of  that  one? 
One  price  for  all.  Whoever  will  redeem  these  slaves 
must  die  in  their  stead.  And,  obviously,  only  one  who 
has  never  sinned,  and  who  is  himself  perfectly  free, 
can  be  accepted.  Only  one  being  has  ever  appeared 
who  met  these  necessary  conditions  —  Jesus  Christ. 

And  to  pay  that  price  is  the  very  business  that 
brought  Jesus  Christ  to  this  earth.  At  the  cost  of 
His  own  life,  of  His  own  unimaginable  suffering,  He 
pays  the  last  demand  of  a  holy  law  and  redeems 
from  death  the  slaves  of  sin.  Are  they  free?  From 
the  curse  of  the  law,  yes.  From  the  habit  of  sin,  no. 
Then  begin  those  great  redemptive  processes  which 
work  in  the  sphere  of  the  inner  life,  the  object  of 
which  is  the  transformation  of  character  and  com- 
plete deliverance  from  the  domination  of  sin.  Let  us 
trace  the  method  of  that  deliverance. 


230  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

It  begins  with  the  complete  removal  of  threat,  of 
fear.  The  believer  is  told  that  he  is  not  under  law, 
that  is,  a  system  of  probation  to  see  if  he  can  work 
out  a  righteousness  for  himself,  but  under  grace,  that 
is,  a  system  of  divine  inworking  which  produces  the 
very  righteousness  which  the  law  required,  but  which 
man  never  achieved.  The  believer  is  assured  that 
Christ  has  given  to  him  eternal  life,  and  that  he 
shall  never  perish;  that  no  man  is  able  to  pluck  him 
out  of  the  omnipotent  hand  which  holds  him;  that 
He  who  began  a  good  work  in  him  will  perfect  it 
till  the  day  of  Christ.  As  for  his  sins,  they  are 
blotted  out,  cast  behind  God's  back,  buried  in  the 
depths  of  the  sea,  forgiven  and  forgotten.  And  this 
is  a  necessary  first  work,  for  no  man  is  really  free 
who  is  under  the  bondage  of  fear. 

Grace  imparts  to  the  believer  the  indwelling  Holy 
Spirit.  The  nature  that  was  open  to  every  assault 
from  without,  and  a  slave  to  every  vile  impulse  from 
within,  is  now  garrisoned  by  omnipotence.  In  the 
power  of  that  indwelling  One,  the  believer  is  made 
free  from  the  monstrous  necessity  of  sinning  under 
which  every  unredeemed  life  groans.  No  Christian 
needs  to  sin.  If  he  yields  to  solicitations  from  with- 
out, or  the  more  subtle  suggestions  from  within,  it 
is  because  he  deliberately  or  carelessly  wills  it  so. 
The  Spirit  is  there  to  break  the  power  of  sin. 

Grace  puts  the  renewed  life  under  the  stimulus 
and  inspiration  of  great  relationships.  The  believer 
is  not  merely  a  pardoned  criminal,  he  is  a  child  and 
son  of  God;    and  that  by  a  new  birth  which  is  as 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  231 

actual  in  the  sphere  of  the  spiritual,  as  his  natural 
birth  was  in  the  sphere  of  the  physical.  He  is  a  son 
of  God,  not  by  some  far-off  fact  of  creation,  but  by 
the  immediate  and  personal  fact  of  a  divine  begetting. 
He  no  longer  traces  his  descent  from  God  through 
Adam,  but  is,  as  Adam  was,  a  son  of  God  with  no 
intervening  ancestor.  This,  the  believer  is  told,  brings 
him  into  the  wonderful  privileges  of  access  to  the 
Father,  and  of  fellowship  with  Him.  Christ  is  not 
ashamed  to  call  him 

"brother,"  —  Matthew  12:50 

he  is  raised  to  joint  heirship  with  Christ  in  all  things, 
and  is  to  share  the  power  and  glory  of  Christ  in  the 
coming  kingdom. 

Grace  confers  upon  the  believer  the  great  office  of 
priest  and  king.  As  priest,  he  is  set  free  from  the 
ancient  formalism  in  the  worship  of  God 

"to  enter  into  the  holiest  by  the  blood  of  Jesus," 

—  Hebrews  10:19 

and  offering,  without  regard  to  time  or  place, 

"spiritual  sacrifices,  acceptable  to  God  by  Jesus  Christ." 

—  /  Peter  2:5 

His  worship,  freed  from  ceremonialism,  is  a  son's 
adoration  of  a  Father  who  is  infinite  in  holiness  and 
benevolence  and  power,  but  who  is  none  the  less  a 
Father  because  He  is  God.    And  this  office  of  priest 


IN    MANY    PULPITS 

carries  o\  necessity  the  privilege  of  intercession.  The 
believer-priest  prays  for  those  outside  the  family  of 
God  who  do  not  pray  for  themselves.  He  is  the 
"daysman"  and  "remembrancer"  before  his  Father. 
Grace  tells  the  believer  that  he  is  as  vitally  united 
to  Christ  as  the  members  of  his  own  body  are  united 
to  him. 

"For  by  one  Spirit  are  we  all  baptized  into  one  body," 

—  /  Corinthians  12:13 

"He  that  is  joined  unto  the  Lord  is  one  spirit." 

—  /  Corinthians  6:17 

And  this  gives  him  the  only  right  conception  of 
what  true  liberty  really  is.  It  is  not  anarchy,  which 
is  the  mere  riot  of  self-will,  but  it  is  to  be  so  joined 
to  God  the  Father;  so  vitally  one  with  Christ  the 
Son;  so  yielding  to  the  gentle  sway  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  that  the  human  will  is  blended  into  the  divine 
will,  and  so  made  one  with  the  absolutely  free  and 
sovereign  will  of  God  Himself.  God  does  as  He  wills, 
but  God  always  wills  to  do  that  which  is  at  once 
absolutely  right  and  absolutely  benevolent. 

In  all  this  there  is  no  subversion  of  the  believer's 
individuality,  but  the  lifting  of  that  individuality  to 
the  divine  level  of  a  passionate  love  of  all  that  is 
highest.  It  is  obedience,  but  obedience  under  the 
new  covenant,  where  the  law  is  written  in  the  heart, 
like  mother-love.  A  mother  finds  her  truest  joy  in 
obedience  to  that  imperative,  born  into  her  deepest 
being  with  the  birth  of  her  child.     No  honest  man 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  233 

feels  the  constraint  of  the  laws  against  theft.  He 
is  not  honest  because  of  something  printed  in  a 
statute  book,  but  because  of  something  printed  on 
his  heart.  He  would  still  be  honest  if  the  statute 
were  repealed.  Therefore,  he  is  perfectly  free.  With- 
out that  interior  work,  no  external  thing  done  to  a 
man  makes  or  can  make  him  free.  Executive 
clemency,  extended  to  a  convicted  criminal,  does  not 
make  him  a  free  man.  He  is  still  the  slave  of  his 
criminal  desires.  But  if  he  falls  in  love  with  honesty 
and  uprightness  and  integrity,  then  he  is  free.  All 
this  transformation,  grace  works  in  the  redeemed 
heart. 

Then  grace  works  transformingly  by  the  power  of 
new  and  exalted  ideals.  The  whole  conception  of 
life  is  changed.  Under  the  old  bondage,  life  was  con- 
ceived of  as  a  possession  which  man  might  rightly 
use  for  himself;  under  the  new  ideal  life  is  precious, 
because  it  may  be  used  for  the  blessing  of  others. 
The  new  man  in  Christ  has  accepted  as  the  new  ideal 
of  his  new  life  Christ's  law  of  sacrifice.  He  heartily 
adopts  Christ's  formulae: 

"The  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to 
minister,  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many." 

—  Matthew  20:28 

"For  whosoever  will  save  his  life  shall  lose  it:    and  whoso- 
ever will  lose  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it." 

—  Matthew  16:25 

"Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and  die,  it 
abideth  alone:   but  if  it  die,  it  bringeth  forth  much  fruit." 

—  John  12:24 


234  IN   MANY  PULPITS 

Such  an  ideal,  heartily  accepted,  under  the  con- 
viction that  SO  only  may  life  be  nobly  lived,  is  of 
itself  a  complete  disenthrallment  from  the  old  slavery 
to  self.  Pursued,  though  with  a  failure,  and  with 
steps  which  often  halt,  such  an  ideal  is  a  transforma- 
tion. The  man  who  accepts  it,  has  issued  to  the  uni- 
verse his  declaration  of  independence.  He  is  free 
from  the  old  appeals  and  solicitations  which  had 
power  over  him  because  they  seemed  to  promise 
something  toward  the  old  monstrous  ministry  to  the 
god  self.  No  longer  desiring  self-exaltation,  the  bribe 
has  ceased  to  appeal.  Its  presentment  only  causes 
pain  to  the  heart  that  has  fallen  in  love  with  humility. 

Then  grace  allures  and  charms  with  the  vision  of 
eternal  things.  Paul  divides  all  things  into  two  cate- 
gories, things  seen  and  things  unseen.  He  declares 
that  the  seen  things  have  the  fatal  defect  of  being 
temporary,  while  the  unseen  things  have  the  infinite 
value  of  eternal  endurance. 

The  problem  of  the  Christian  life,  therefore,  is  based 
upon  the  fact  that  so  long  as  the  Christian  lives  in 
this  world  he  is,  so  to  speak,  two  trees  —  the  old  tree 
of  the  flesh,  and  the  new  tree  of  the  divine  nature 
implanted  by  the  new  birth;  and  the  problem  itself 
is,  how  to  keep  barren  the  old  tree  and  to  make 
fruitful  the  new  tree.  This  problem  is  solved  by 
walking  in  the  Spirit. 


"This  I  say  then,  Walk  in  the  Spirit,  and  ye  shall  not  fulfil 
the  lust  of  the  flesh."  —  Galatians  5:16 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  235 

The  sap  of  the  new  tree  is  the  Holy  Spirit  indwelling 
in  the  believer. 


"The  water  that  I  shall  give  him  shall  be  in  him  a  well  of 
water  springing  up  into  everlasting  life." 

—  John  4:14 

It  is  the  truth  implied  in  the  parable  of  the  vine 
and  the  branches.  The  vine  is  Christ,  the  branches 
are  believers,  and  the  unseen  Renewer  of  vigor  and 
growth  is  the  Spirit.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how 
radical  is  the  revolution  in  the  life  which  is  wrought 
by  the  simple  recognition  of  the  Spirit's  indwelling. 
His  presence,  thus  acknowledged,  gives  the  keynote 
of  the  life.  If  some  greatly  honored  and  beloved 
friend  enters  our  homes  as  a  guest,  the  whole  life 
of  the  home,  so  long  as  the  guest  remains,  is  keyed 
to  the  fact  of  his  presence.  All  merely  personal 
preferences  are  for  the  time  subordinated  to  the 
known  tastes  and  preferences  of  the  guest.  Inev- 
itably, then,  the  recognition  of  the  Spirit's  indwell- 
ing must  be  followed  by  loving  response  to  His 
wishes. 

We  learn,  perhaps  with  amazement,  that  God  the 
Spirit  will  take  possession  of  no  more  of  our  lives  than 
is  willingly  abandoned  to  Him.  He  is  the  divine 
courtesy,  the  divine  delicacy,  impersonated.  He 
comes  as  Christ's  personal  representative,  whose  first 
and  greatest  function  is  to  make  Christ  real  to  us; 
to  actualize  to  us  all  that  we  have  and  are  in  Christ. 
Has  Christ  been  to  us  an  abstraction,  a  name,  even 


286  IN  MANY  PULPITS 

though  our  faith  in  Him  has  been  true?  Then  the 
Spirit  will  make  Him  the  personal  Christ,  the  present 
Christ.  Has  the  divine  Fatherhood  been  to  us  but 
a  juiceless  doctrine,  a  mere  phrase?  Then  the  Spirit 
will  make  that  Fatherhood  more  real  to  us  than  that 
of  an  earthly  parent.    He  will  cry  in  our  hearts, 

"Abba,  Father,"  —  Mark  14:36 

till  our  whole  being  shall  respond. 

Has  our  prayer  life  been  cold  and  formal?  The 
indwelling  Spirit  will  form  within  our  hearts  peti- 
tions that  shall  be  fragrant  with  faith,  and  warm 
with  desire.  Has  our  worship  been  a  thing  of  forms 
and  times,  a  Sunday  performance,  mostly  intermitted 
during  the  week,  so  that  we  have  come  to  call  our 
meeting  house  a  "house  of  worship,"  forgetting  the 
word  of  Him  who  said: 

"the  hour  cometh,  when  ye  shall  neither  in  this  mountain, 
nor  yet  at  Jerusalem,  worship  the  Father."  —  John  4:21 

"God  is  a  spirit:    and  they  that  worship  him  must  worship 
him  in  spirit  and  in  truth."  —  John  4:24 

The  Spirit  comes  to  light  in  our  hearts  the  pure 
flame  of  adoration,  wonder,  love  and  praise  —  a  flame 
that  will  make  every  day  and  every  house  one  of 
worship.  But  most  of  all  He  comes  to  subdue  and 
conquer  the  old  self-life  which  has  dominated  us 
and  brought  us  into  captivity  to  the  law  of  sin. 

We  make  wonderful  discoveries  as  we  go  on  walk- 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  237 

ing  in  the  Spirit.  We  come  upon  new  and  humbling 
revelations  of  our  own  evil,  but  along  with  these, 
such  experiences  of  the  sanctifying  and  delivering 
power  of  the  Spirit  as  lead  us  constantly  in  the  tri- 
umph of  Jesus  Christ.  Believing  this,  the  new  man 
in  Christ  sits  lightly  to  things  seen.  They  become 
mere  accidents  of  life,  not  its  substance.  Of  this 
world's  goods  he  may  have  much,  and  he  is  glad 
because  they  can  be  used  to  enrich  other  lives;  or 
he  may  gather  little  and  is  glad,  because  he  has  not 
the  responsibility  of  the  right  use  of  great  posses- 
sions. His  true  inheritance  is  in  heaven.  There  he 
has  riches  untold.  That  is  his  home.  There,  he  will 
always  have  his  great  place  of  identity  with  Christ 
in  the  glory,  a  son  of  God  to  whom  the  very  angels 
are  now,  and  ever  will  be,  the  servants. 

"Stand  fast  therefore  in  the  liberty  wherewith  Christ  hath 
made  us  free,  and  be  not  entangled  again  with  the  yoke 
of  bondage."  —  Galatians  5:1 


THE   MYSTERY  OF  GODLINESS 


THE   MYSTERY   OF  GODLINESS 

"And  without  controversy  great  is  the  mystery  of  godliness:" 

—  /  Timothy  3:16 

THAT  is,  in  Christianity,  which  is  the  divine 
method  for  the  production  of  godliness,  or  god- 
likeness,  the  transformation  of  man  into  the  image 
of  God,  there  are  mysteries  —  supernatural  things 
—  miraculous  things.  And  not  only  mysteries,  but 
great  mysteries,  and  so  evidently  is  that  true  that  it 
is  without  controversy  —  it  is  not  open  to  question: 

"without  controversy,  great  is  the  mystery  of  godliness:" 

—  /  Timothy  3:16 

The  apostle  immediately  enumerates  six  of  these 
mysteries,  not  as  exhausting  the  number  by  any 
means,  but  as  illustrating  his  proposition  that  in 
Christianity  there  are  mysteries. 

First  of  all,  he  instances  the  incarnation: 

"God  was  manifest  in  the  flesh,"  —  /  Timothy  3:16 

Truly  here  is  a  mystery  —  nay,  two  of  them,  for 

241 


94A  IN  MANY  PULPITS 

God  is  a  mystery  and  man  is  a  mystery  and  the  in- 
carnation combines  them  both. 

"justified  in  the  Spirit,"  —  /  Timothy  3:16 

first  in  His  baptism,  and  again  when,  by  the  Spirit, 
He  was  raised  from  the  dead,  after  bearing  the  sin 
of  His  people. 

"seen  of  angels,"  —  /  Timothy  3:16 

Outside  of  the  ordinary  sight  of  man  are  intelligences, 
spiritual  beings,  angels.  These  are  linked  to  this 
God  man,  this  divine  One. 

"preached  unto  the  Gentiles,"  —  /  Timothy  3:16 

It  seems  a  strange  thing  that  this  should  be  counted 
among  the  mysteries,  and  yet  to  one  instructed  in 
Old  Testament  truth,  it  is  a  great  mystery. 

"believed  on  in  the  world,"  —  /  Timothy  3:16 

Another  one  of  the  mysteries  of  godliness, 

"received  up  into  glory,"  —  /  Timothy  3:16 

—  the  crowning  miracle  of  His  resurrection  and  as- 
cension into  heaven.  So  that  just  illustratively,  and 
as  bringing  out  his  thought,  the  apostle  mentions  six 
of  these  great  mysteries  which  stand  connected  with 
godliness. 

There  is  a  tendency  in  our  day  to  rest  the  defence 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.  SCOFIELD  243 

of  Christianity  upon  the  superiority  of  its  ethics,  upon 
the  moral  beauty  of  it  as  a  preceptive  system.  It 
was  this  fear  of  the  miraculous,  this  lack  of  faith 
boldly  to  proclaim  the  mysteries  and  supernatural  in 
the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  was  the  root-idea 
of  a  Parliament  of  Religions  at  the  Chicago  World's 
Fair.  The  thought  was  not  that  we  should  demon- 
strate to  the  adherents  of  the  false  faiths  the  divine 
origin  of  ours  by  means  of  its  supernaturalism,  but 
that  we  should  demonstrate  that  our  ethical  system 
was,  on  the  whole,  superior  to  theirs.  Beyond  all 
question  there  is  in  that  superiority  an  unanswerable 
argument.  But,  after  all,  there  is  nothing  more  super- 
natural in  Christianity  than  its  ethics.  We  do  not 
escape  the  miraculous,  or  marvelous,  or  mysterious  in 
Christianity  by  exalting  the  preceptive  teachings  of 
the  Word  of  God,  for  the  absolutely  unique  character 
of  those  teachings  immediately  raises  the  question  of 
origin. 

Compared  with  this  body  of  precept  all  the  codes 
of  all  the  philosophies  are  imperfect  —  not  to  say 
defiled  by  obvious  imperfections.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  Ten  Commandments.  You  may  rest  their  vindi- 
cation upon  their  Tightness.  Every  one  admits  that 
it  is  right  to  do  those  things  which  are  commanded 
and  wrong  to  do  those  things  which  are  forbidden. 
But  that  very  perfection  suggests  the  inquiry: 
"Whence  came  that  law?"  So,  by  whatever  road  we 
approach  the  subject,  we  get  back,  after  all,  to  the 
supernatural,  to  the  mysterious.  It  is  an  inescapable 
element  of  the  Christian  faith. 


244  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

Turn  to  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  Trace  the  his- 
tory of  the  first  putting  forth  of  this  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ.  You  find  the  constant  insistence  upon  the 
marvelous  and  mysterious  in  it  as  the  unanswerable 
proof  that  it  came  from  God.  The  great  burden  of  the 
apostolic  preaching  was  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
Christ.  It  was  a  recent  event.  The  witnesses  of 
His  resurrection  to  the  number  of  about  five  hundred 
were  still  living.  The  whole  matter  was  one  open 
to  inquiry  and  susceptible  of  ordinary  investigation. 
And  the  first  preachers  went  everywhere,  resting  the 
authority  of  the  gospel  which  they  preached  upon 
that  stupendous  miracle  —  the  resurrection. 

But  all  the  mysteries  were  preached.  There  was 
no  apology  for  these  things;  nay,  they  were  insisted 
upon;  the  weight  of  the  argument  is  upon  them. 
The  advance  and  maintenance  of  the  gospel  was 
made  to  depend  upon  the  supernatural  in  the  faith, 
upon  the  great  body  of  mystery  which  it  holds. 
Everywhere  the  incarnation,  resurrection,  the  second 
advent  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  existence  and  presence 
of  angels,  were  the  every-day  testimony  of  the 
apostolic  church.  They  gloried  in  these  truths, 
they  were  not  afraid  of  them,  and  they  did  not  apolo- 
gize for  them. 

Since,  then,  these  great  mysteries  inhere  in  the 
Christian  faith,  we  shall  do  well  to  consider  what 
they  are  and  why  they  are  there. 

First  of  all,  we  ought  to  expect  it  to  be  so.  If 
God  is  at  work  for  the  saving  of  men;    if  the  gospel 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  245 

is  what  the  apostle  Paul  said  it  was  —  and  he  gave 
that  as  his  reason  for  not  being  ashamed  of  it  — 

"the   power   of   God   unto   salvation   to   every   one   that 
believeth" ;  —  Romans  i :  16 

if  the  very  essence  of  Christianity  is  that  men  are 
saved,  not  by  conformity  to  ethical  precepts,  but  by  a 
great  God-wrought  work;  then,  just  because  God  is 
doing  it,  there  must  be  a  measure  of  mystery  in  it. 
It  would  not  be  God's  work  if  there  were  not  mystery 
in  its  processes. 

God's  work  in  creation  is  full  of  mystery.  We 
do  not  refuse  to  believe  the  great  patent  and  obtru- 
sive facts  of  creation  because  we  are  unable  to  ex- 
plain them.  The  very  commonest  phenomenon,  that 
of  life  —  so  common  that  we  cannot  live  (with  our 
senses  at  all  exercised)  through  one  day  without 
observing  it  again  and  again  —  whether  in  the  tiny 
blade  of  grass  or  in  the  men  and  women  about  us, 
is  a  mystery  which  has  never  been  solved.  Today 
it  is  as  great  a  mystery  as  it  was  in  the  very  dawn 
of  creation;  no  one  knows  anything  about  it  except 
the  fact  of  it.  But  we  do  not  refuse  to  credit  the 
fact,  because  unable  to  explain  the  process.  We 
do  not  recoil  from  the  material  universe  of  God  and 
refuse  to  believe  in  it  because  we  cannot  explain  its 
mystery.  Wherever  we  find  God's  work,  we  find 
the  miraculous  and  mysterious.  If  God  is  at  work, 
this  is  inevitable. 

Now,  if  this  is  true  of  God's  work  in  creation,  it 


246  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

must  be  true  of  God's  work  in  redemption,  and  that 
simply  because  it  is  the  Incomprehensible  who  is  at 
work.  Therefore  when  we  come  upon  a  miracle,  we 
do  not  apologize  for  it,  we  do  not  retire  it  into  the 
background  of  our  testimony  and  make  as  little  of 
it  as  possible,  but  we  exult  in  it  and  proclaim  it.  We 
glory  in  the  fact  that  this  Christianity  of  ours  presents 
mysteries  which  are,  at  present,  insoluble  —  into  the 
processes  of  which  the  mind  cannot  penetrate.  We 
point  to  that  as  God's  very  sign  manual  and  authen- 
tication of  the  system.  If  that  were  wanting  we 
should  reject  the  system  as  evidently  man-made.  A 
God  whose  being  and  processes  I  could  understand, 
would  be  of  precisely  my  girth  and  stature  —  no 
more.  So  this  fact  that  there  are  mysteries  in  Chris- 
tianity is  our  boast.  It  is  the  unanswerable  proof  to 
our  minds  that  God,  indeed,  is  the  Author  of  this 
religion. 

If  we  examine  the  natural  religions  —  the  man- 
made  religions  —  we  do  not  find  this  mystery.  We 
find  a  vast  number  of  fables,  it  is  true,  but  we  are 
easily  led  to  see  (even  the  enlightened  votaries  of 
these  religions  acknowledge  this)  that  they  are  old 
wives'  tales  and  mere  childish  traditions. 

Not  so  if  we  turn  to  the  mysteries  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith,  for  we  ourselves  are  the  subjects  of  them 
in  large  part  and  are  seeing  the  effects  and  results 
of  them  every  day  in  our  own  experiences.  For  some 
of  the  very  profoundest  of  these  mysteries  are  per- 
petually renewed,  continually  reenacted.  Regener- 
ation, answered  prayer,  the  hand  of  God  in  human 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  247 

affairs  —  these  are  the  mysteries  in  which  we  live 
and  move  and  have  our  being.  It  is  not  a  question 
of  historical  signs  and  wonders  merely;  it  is  a  ques- 
tion of  a  living  experience  with  a  living  God  whose 
dealings  perpetually  transcend  the  reach  of  our  com- 
prehension. 

In  the  second  place,  in  every  one  of  these  myster- 
ies there  are  two  elements.  There  is  the  fact,  which 
is  always  simple,  historical,  obvious,  reasonable;  and 
there  is  the  explanation  of  that  fact,  which  eludes 
our  discernment.  There  lies  the  baffling,  the  mystery. 
What  is  done  is  evident.  How  it  came  to  be  done 
is  the  thing  we  do  not  understand.  The  process  is  not 
explained.  Therein  lies  the  element  of  mystery  in 
this  faith  of  ours. 

Take  for  an  illustration  the  first  of  the  mysteries 
enumerated  by  Paul  in  our  text  —  the  incarnation. 
The  Scriptures  state  the  fact  of  the  incarnation  in 
the  simplest  terms: 

"God  was  manifest  in  the  flesh,"  —  /  Timothy  3:16 

"The  Word  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us," 

—  John  1:14 

As  a  fact,  therefore,  it  offers  itself  to  human  obser- 
vation and  verification.    So  we  look  at  Jesus  — 

"manifest  in  the  flesh"  —  /  Timothy  3:16 

therefore  human,  and  immediately  observation  con- 
firms the  fact.     How  perfectly  human,  how  entirely 


248  IN   MANY    PULPITS 

human  He  is!  There  is  a  birth;  there  is  a  cradle; 
there  sure  swaddling  clothes;  there  is  a  nursing 
mother;  there  is  growth;  there  is  the  obedience  of 
a  child;  and  then1  is,  finally,  the  taking  up  of  a 
great  mission  ■ —  a  man  goes  out  among  his  fellow 
men.  weeps  when  they  weep,  rejoices  when  they  re- 
joice, is  weary  like  other  men,  and  at  last  dies. 

S  el  this  man  is  just  as  evidently  doing  things  which 
only  God  can  do.  He  makes  it  evident  that  He  is 
omniscient  and  omnipotent.  He  knows  what  is  going 
on  at  a  distance.  He  creates.  He  commands  nature 
and  she  obeys.  He  heals  incurable  diseases  and  He 
raises  the  dead.  The  fact  of  the  incarnation  is 
confirmed  —  we  see  the  man,  and  we  see  God.  But 
—  and  here  is  the  mystery  —  when  we  would  go  be- 
hind the  fact  and  ask:  "How  can  that  be?  How  is 
it  that  God  can  be  incarnated  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth?" 
we  get  no  answer.  A  fact,  then,  is  given,  which  is  veri- 
fiable, simple,  obvious,  and  it  is  the  fact  which  is  pre- 
sented for  our  faith,  and  not  the  process,  not  the 
method. 

This  is  true  of  all  these  mysteries.  Take  for  an- 
other illustration,  regeneration: 

"Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  Except  a  man  be  born 
again"  —  John  j:j 

Instantly  we  are  ready  with  the  question  of  Nicode- 
mus: 

"How  can  a  man  be  born  when  he  is  old?"  —  John  3:4 
What  is  the  answer?    Is  there  an  unveiling  of  that 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  249 

mysterious  process  by  which  the  Spirit  of  God,  acting 
upon  the  Word,  imparts  the  divine  life,  —  creates 
a  new  man  within  a  living  man?  Not  at  all;  not  the 
smallest  syllable  of  explanation  of  the  process.  What 
then  are  we  told? 

"And  as  Moses  lifted  up  the  serpent  in  the  wilderness,  even 
so  must  the  Son  of  man  be  lifted  up: 
That  whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not  perish,  but 
have  eternal  life."  —  John  3:14,  15 

And  then  we  look  away  to  Christ  crucified;  we  see 
Him  bearing 

"our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the  tree"  —  /  Peter  2:24 

and  we  say  with  Paul: 

"who  loved  me,  and  gave  himself  for  me."  —  Galatians  2:20 

Lo!  the  mystery  is  enacted  and  we  are  born  again 
—  but  our  senses  are  not  quick  enough  to  surprise 
God  in  the  process.  Here  for  our  faith  is  a  fact, 
Jesus  hanging  upon  the  Cross.  The  cross  has  an 
historical  place:  it  is  a  fact  in  the  world's  history,  — 
just  as  real  a  fact  as  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  —  and 
that  fact  is  presented  for  our  belief,  not  the  explana- 
tion of  the  fact.  But  the  result  of  faith  in  the  fact  of 
the  cross  is  another  fact  —  and  this  too  is  verifiable. 
We  see  men  full  of  all  kinds  of  evil,  transformed  in 
life,  and  we  see,  too,  that  the  change  is  first  of  all 
within.  The  changed  outward  life  is  the  spontaneous, 
joyous  outworking  of  a  wholly  new  inner  life,  so  that 


250  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

it  is  natural,  so  to  speak,  for  these  things  to  come 
forth.  We  see,  then,  the  result.  We  are  not  taken 
into  the  mystery  of  the  process. 

Fake  prayer,  —  the  most  familiar  of  the  experi- 
ences of  a  Christian.  There,  also,  you  have  a  very 
simple  fact,  and  a  mystery  very  profound.  A  child 
of  God  lifts  up  his  voice  and  heart  to  God.  Does  he 
see  God?  Not  at  all.  So  far  as  outward  observation 
goes,  he  is  talking  into  the  air.  He  may  not  be  talk- 
ing audibly  at  all;  perhaps  the  anguish  is  too  great 
to  put  into  words  and  his  groans  ascend  to  the  throne 
of  God.  Does  he  see  God?  No.  But  presently 
something  happens  and  it  is  the  very  thing  he  asked 
for. 

Only  yesterday  I  called  upon  a  friend  who  for 
weary  months  has  been  suffering  and  is  now  facing 
a  surgical  operation  that  may  be  fatal,  as  she  well 
knows.  She  was  telling  me  of  her  experience.  She 
has  already  undergone  one  exceedingly  perilous  and 
painful  operation.  Her  testimony  was  that  two 
weeks  before  it  was  to  be  performed  she  was  filled 
with  the  torment  of  fear.  She  said  with  a  sweet  hu- 
mility/'I  didn't  know  how  to  pray,  but  I  asked  God  to 
take  that  fear  away,  and  —  would  you  believe  it, 
He  did." 

So  it  is  with  the  providences  of  life.  Prosperity 
comes  to  one,  losses  to  another.  One  pathway  seems 
to  be  strewn  with  roses,  another  is  paved  with  thorns. 
Why?  I  do  not  know:  it  is  a  mystery.  But  as  I 
stand  before  it,  baffled  and  perplexed,  I  hear  the 
words  of  the  Lord  Jesus: 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.  SCOFIELD  251 

"What  I  do  thou  knowest  not  now;    but  thou  shalt  know 
hereafter."  —  John  13:7 

How  strange,  how  inexplicable  is  the  providence  of 
death!  How  strange  some  deaths!  How  sorely 
puzzled  I  was  when  that  young  missionary,  dear 
Clarence  Wilbur,  was  taken  in  the  morning  of  his 
beautiful  manhood  from  the  very  forefront  of  the 
fight  down  there  in  dark  Central  America,  a  noble 
soldier  of  Jesus  Christ  stricken  down  dead!  Why 
was  I  not  taken?  Why  not  some  of  us  who  seem  to 
be  doing  so  little  for  the  Lord?  Why  should  he  be 
taken?    I  do  not  know.    I  have  no  solution  to  offer. 

I  think  of  dear  Mrs.  Dillon,  another  missionary, 
heroine  in  Jesus  Christ,  taken  from  her  husband,  from 
her  children,  and  from  her  work  in  that  same  dark 
land. 

In  the  mysteries  of  godliness,  the  human  side  is 
always  simple,  reasonable  and  right.  It  commends 
itself  to  the  judgment  and  to  the  conscience  and  to 
the  heart  of  man,  invariably.  Judgment  says,  it  is 
wise  to  trust  Christ;  conscience  affirms  that  it  is 
right  to  trust  Christ;  the  unquiet  heart  knows  it  can 
never  rest  until  it  trusts  Christ.  But  connected  with 
this  simple,  reasonable  and  right  thing  which  man  is 
to  do,  there  is  a  great  category  of  strange  and  mar- 
velous and  unexplained  things,  which  God  will  do, 
but  that  is  God's  part  of  it.  We  go  stumbling  over 
that  which  God  reserves  to  Himself,  and  we  are 
unable  to  find  one  single,  unreasonable  requirement 
—  staggering,  puzzling  requirement  —  laid  upon  us. 


IN  MANY  PULPITS 

This,  then,  is  what  it  comes  to:  God  offers  facts 
to  human  faith  —  verifiable  facts,  and  facts  for  the 
truth  of  which,  before  He  demands  faith,  He  inva- 
riably offers  proof.    Jesus  Christ  said: 

"believe  me  for  the  very  works'  sake  "  —  John  14:11 

abundant  proof  concerning  that  which  is  asked  of  you 
and  of  me  —  faith  for  that  which  God  reserves  to 
Himself.  It  is  beautiful  to  see  how  Paul,  for  instance, 
and  all  men  of  faith  of  the  Bible,  humbly  took  this 
place.  They  confessed  themselves  to  be  beginners 
in  the  school  of  God. 

"For  we  know  in  part,  and  we  prophesy  in  part." 

—  /  Corinthians  ij:q 

says  the  great  apostle. 

"For  now  we  see  through  a  glass,  darkly;" 

—  /  Corinthians  13:12 

Does  Paul  stumble  therefore?  Not  at  all.  With 
quiet  assurance,  he  stands  before  this  partial  knowl- 
edge, this  clouded  mirror,  and  answers: 

"But  when  that  which  is  perfect  is  come,  then  that  which  is 
in   part   shall   be   done   away."  —  /   Corinthians   13:10 

"but  then  shall  I  know  even  as  also  I  am  known." 

—  /  Corinthians  13:12 

Meantime  he  trusted  that  the  Almighty  was  taking 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.   SCOFIELD  253 

care  of  the  mysteries.  Is  this  difficult,  dear  friends? 
Can  we  not  trust  and  patiently  wait?  We  are  in  the 
kindergarten  now;  perhaps  we  could  not  understand 
the  method  of  the  mysteries,  even  if  it  were  told  us 
ever  so  plainly. 
Let  this  suffice  —  we  shall  know  hereafter. 


GLORYING  IN  THE  CROSS 


GLORYING   IN  THE  CROSS 

"But  God  forbid  that  I  should  glory,  save  in  the  cross  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by  whom  the  world  is  crucified  unto  me, 
and  I  unto  the  world."  —  Galatians  6:14 

THE  first  part  of  this  text  has  become  one  of 
the  commonplaces  of  our  Christian  vocabulary. 
We  quote  it  in  our  prayers. 

"God  forbid  that  I  should  glory  save  in  the  cross  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ."  —  Galatians  6:14 

Why  bring  God  into  a  meaningless  prayer?  God  has 
long  ago  forbidden  that  we  should  glory  save  in  the 
cross:  it  is  we  who  persist  in  glorying  in  almost  every- 
thing else. 

I  have  heard  Christians  glory  in  fine  church  build- 
ings ;  I  have  heard  them  glory  in  their  denominations, 
their  numbers,  their  wealth,  their  riches;  and  I  have 
heard  them  glory  in  church  choirs  —  especially  in 
church  choirs.  Last  summer,  going  to  preach  in  a 
city  church,  I  was  received  by  a  courteous  officer  who 
said:  "We  are  congratulating  ourselves  on  hearing 
you  today,  and  we  are  congratulating  you  on  hearing 
our  choir."  I  heard  the  choir,  sitting  within  three 
feet  of  them,  but  I  could  not  distinguish  ten  words 

257 


258  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

of  what  they  sang.  I  have  heard  Christians  glory  in 
their  preacher.  Now,  it  is  right  and  scriptural  for 
Christians  to  esteem  faithful  ministers  of  the  Word 
for  their  work's  sake ;  that  is  one  thing.  But  to  boast 
in  their  gifts  is  quite  another.  We  need  to  hear  again 
Paul's  almost  contemptuous  — 

"Who  then  is  Paul,  and  who  is  Apollos,  but  ministers  by 
whom  ye  believed."  —  /  Corinthians  3:5 

I  have  heard  Christians  glory  in  the  amount  of  money 
they  gave  or  spent  on  ecclesiatical  adornments;  I 
have  even  heard  them  glory  in  church  organs. 

Think  what  Paul  might  have  gloried  in.  He  might 
have  gloried  in  his  descent  from  Abraham,  one  of  the 
kingliest  men  in  history;  he  might  have  gloried  in  the 
long  line  of  law-givers,  prophets,  priests  and  kings, 
whose  goodness  and  genius  shed  luster  on  the  Jewish 
nation  and  brought  blessing  to  the  world.  He  might 
have  gloried  in  his  flawless  morality;  in  his  piety; 
in  his  zeal;  in  his  superbly  trained  powers;  in  his 
matchless  success.  But  what  Paul  did  glory  in  was 
the  cross. 

The  cross  has  come  to  be  a  symbol  to  be  venerated, 
even  by  those  who  never  come  to  saving  terms  with 
the  Crucified.  A  man  once  went  to  Talleyrand  and 
told  him  he  had  invented  a  new  religion.  Talleyrand 
answered:  "I  am  a  busy  man:  go  and  get  yourself 
crucified  for  your  new  religion,  get  yourself  raised 
from  the  dead ;  then  come  back  here  and  I  will  listen 
to  you."    But  in  the  year  65  of  this  era  the  cross 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  259 

was  not  a  venerated  symbol.  To  the  man  of  that  day 
it  meant  just  what  a  gallows  means  to  the  man  of  this 
day.  Paul,  however,  one  of  the  foremost  men  of 
that  or  any  other  time,  gloried  in  setting  forth  a  cross 
as  the  symbol  of  that  to  which  he  gladly  devoted  his 
very  life.  Why?  What  did  Paul  find  in  the  cross  to 
glory  in?  We  shall  find  a  full  answer  to  that  question 
without  going  outside  this  very  Epistle.  But  let  us 
look  first  at  the  latter  clause.  Of  what  world  is 
Paul  speaking  when  he  says: 

"But  God  forbid  that  I  should  glory,  save  in  the  cross  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  by  whom  the  world  is  crucified 
unto  me,  and  I  unto  the  world."  —  Galatians  6:14 

One  of  the  chief  infelicities  of  our  common  version 
of  the  Bible  is  that  it  translates  many  Greek  words 
by  one  English  word,  "world."  Sometimes  "world" 
means  that  part  of  the  earth  over  which  the  Roman 
power  spread  its  sway.  Sometimes  it  means  the 
mass  of  human  beings  on  the  earth.  Sometimes  it 
means  that  elaborate  world-system  of  power,  riches, 
pleasure  and  vanity,  which  seems  so  alluring  to  all  of 
us,  but  which  was  organized  by  Satan  and  of  which 
he  is  "god"  and  "prince."  But  in  Paul's  writings 
it  often  means  ceremonial  and  external  religion.  A 
religion  which  consists  of  ceremonies,  synagogue 
going,  rites,  ordinances  and  the  like,  and  which  ex- 
pressed itself  inside  the  fold  of  Christian  profession 
in  Paul's  time,  by  the  demand  that  converts  should 
be  circumcised.  Such  religionists  were  a  party  in 
the  professing  church.  This  was  the  "world"  to 
which  Paul  was  crucified.    The  context  shows  this. 


260  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

The  ceremonialists  had  a  symbol;  — the  knife  of 
the  circumdsers.  Paul  had  a  symbol; — the  cross 
of  Christ.  It  was,  needless  to  say,  no  question  of  what 
the  ancient  rite  of  circumcision  might  justly  mean 
to  an  Israelite.  Paul's  sole  contention  was,  that  in 
the  light  of  the  cross,  circumcision  had  lost  all  mean- 
ing. But  the  ceremonialists  had  a  seeming  advan- 
tage. They  would  say:  "We  are  not  like  Paul  with 
his  easy  'believe  and  be  saved'  religion."  They  re- 
quired something  arduous  and  difficult.  And  Paul's 
answer  was  that  his  gospel  also  required  something 
so  arduous  and  so  difficult,  their  circumcision  was 
absolutely  nothing  in  comparison  with  it.  That  his 
gospel  required  the  awful  death  of  the  Son  of  God; 
and  from  man  a  humbling  that  left  him  not  even 
circumcision  to  glory  in. 

The  knife  of  the  circumcisers  has  indeed  long  been 
sheathed,  —  it  finds  no  place  in  modern  religious  dis- 
cussion; but  it  still  stands  as  a  symbol  of  works 
without  faith  —  futile. 

So  Paul  had  nothing  of  himself  in  which  to  glory, 
but  nothing  could  hinder  his  glorying  in  the  cross. 
Paul  gloried  in  the  cross,  first  because  there  the  Son 
of  God 

"gave  himself  for  our  sins,  that  he  might  deliver  us  from 
this  present  evil  world"  —  Galatians  1:4 

In  that  cross  Paul  saw  God  Himself  take  up  the 
whole  question  of  our  sins  and  so  deal  with  them 
that  now  he  could  fling  out  his  triumphant  challenge 
to  the  universe: 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  261 

"Who  shall  lay  anything  to  the  charge  of  God's  elect?" 

—  Romans  8:33 

Is  not  that  something  to  glory  about? 

Paul  gloried  in  the  cross  because  he  had  died 
there  with  Christ. 


"I  am  crucified  with  Christ;    nevertheless  I  live;" 

—  Galatians  2:20 


The  law  in  slaying  Christ  there  had  slain  Paul. 

"For  I  through  the  law  am  dead  to  the  law,  that  I  might 
live  unto  God."  —  Galatians  2:ig 

Henceforth  he  was  become  dead  to  the  law.    The 
law  having  slain  him  had  exhausted  its  demand. 

"The  law  hath  dominion  over  a  man  as  long  as  he  liveth" 

—  Romans  7:1 

but  no  longer.    Now  Paul  could  do  what  he  never 
could  do  under  the  law;  he  could 

"live  by  the  faith  of  the  Son  of  God,  who  loved  me,  and 
gave  himself  for  me."  —  Galatians  2:20 

So  he  will  glory  in  the  cross  that  set  him  free. 

Paul  would  glory  in  the  cross  because  there  Christ 
had  redeemed  him  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  at  the 
awful  cost  of  being  made  a  curse  for  him. 


gflg  IN   MANY    PULPITS 

"Christ  hath  redeemed  US  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  being 
made  a  curse  for  us:"  —  Galatians  3:13 

He  had  been 

"of  the  works  of  the  law"  —  Galatians  3:10 

and  the  law  had  cursed  him;  but  Christ  had  come 
and  lifted  that  dreadful  curse  from  Paul,  that  Paul 
might  be  redeemed.  That  cross  was  at  once  the 
manifestation  and  the  measure  of  the  personal  love 
of  Christ  for  him,  Paul  — 

"Who  loved  me,  and  gave  himself  for  me." 
—  Galatians  2:20 

Here,  friends,  is  something  wonderful,  and  I  would 
that  we  might  all  enter  into  it.  It  is  even  more  wonder- 
ful than  the  cloud  into  which  Moses  entered  on  Sinai. 
It  is  that  Christ  in  His  death  not  only  saw  and  loved 
us  all,  but  He  saw  and  loved  each  of  us.  This  is 
distinctly  stated  by  Isaiah: 

"When  thou  shalt  make  his  soul  an  offering  for  sin,  he 
shall  see  his  seed"  —  Isaiah  53:10 

"He  shall  see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul,   and  shall   be 
satisfied : "  —  Isaiah  53:11 

The  death  pangs  of  Christ  were  the  birth  pangs  of  the 
new  creation  each  member  of  which  is  born  separately 
and  redeemed  separately.  Of  that  compensatory 
vision  each  of  us  may  say:  "He  saw  me,  and  gave 
Himself  for  me." 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD 

Paul  glorified  in  the  cross  because  by  it  he  was 
redeemed  from  "under  the  law,"  that  he  might  re- 
ceive the  placing  as  a  son. 

"To  redeem  them  that  were  under  the  law,  that  we  might 
receive  the  adoption  of  sons."  —  Galatians  4:5 

The  cross  did  not  redeem  Paul  from  the  curse  of  the 
law  only  to  leave  him  still  under  that  which  had 
cursed  him,  and  must  continue  righteously  to  curse 
all  who  are  under  it: 

"as  many  as  are  of  the  works  of  the  law  are  under  the 
curse"  —  Galatians  3: 10 

Paul  gloried  in  the  cross  because  it  made  possible  — 
next  to  deliverance  from  the  curse  —  his  mightiest 
blessing:   the  indwelling  Holy  Spirit. 

"And  because  ye  are  sons,  God  hath  sent  forth  the  Spirit 
of  his  Son  into  your  hearts"  —  Galatians  4:6 

Paul  well  knew  that  through  the  holy  atoning  blood, 
and  that  only,  could  he  ever  have  received  the 
Spirit.  What  a  new  reason  for  glorying  in  the  cross. 
And  finally  Paul  would  glory  in  the  cross  because 
it  made  an  end  of  things  between  him  and  the  world. 

"But  God  forbid  that  I  should  glory,  save  in  the  cross  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by  whom  the  world  is  crucified 
unto  me,  and  I  unto  the  world."  —  Galatians  6:14 

Friends,  here  is  something  searching.    It  is  one  thing 


j(;t  IN  1NIANY  PITLPTTS 

to  glory  in  the  cross  because  by  it  we  are  become 
dead  to  the  law;  but  are  we  as  ready  to  exult  in  that 
same  cross  because  by  it  we  are  become  dead  to  the 
world  and  the  world  dead  to  us?  To  Paul,  the  cross 
stood  not  only  between  him  and  the  wrath  of  God, 
but  between  him  and  this  great  world-system  of 
ambition,  greed,  and  pleasure. 

There  is  a  closing  word  at  once  austere  and 
difficult. 

"From  henceforth  let  no  man  trouble  me:  for  I  bear  in 
my  body  the  marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus."  —  Galatians  6:17 

The  Greek  for  "marks"  is  "stigmata."  What  does 
this  mean?  We  may  not  dogmatize.  Two  interpre- 
tations are  suggested.  Paul  had,  like  his  Master, 
been  cruelly  scourged.  Doubtless  his  body,  like 
Christ's  sacred  body,  bore  the  marks  of  the  scourge. 
In  this  sense  the  apostle  bore  the  stigmata  of  Christ. 
But  from  earliest  ages  it  has  been  believed  that  also 
upon  Paul's  flesh  had  been  supernaturally  imprinted 
the  scars  of  the  nails.  There  seems  no  room  for  his- 
toric doubt  that  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  whom  even 
Protestants  have  called  "the  Christliest  man  since 
Paul,"  also  received  the  stigmata.  It  is  a  very,  very 
sacred,  a  very  tender  subject. 

The  Cross  is  the  throne  of  truth.  Upon  it  Jesus 
completed,  by  the  shedding  of  His  precious  blood,  the 
work  of  our  redemption,  through  which,  from  being 
the  children  of  wrath,  we  are  become  the  children  of 
a  loving  and  eternal  Father.    And  whatever,  in  the 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.  SCOFIELD  265 

divine  will,  it  is  given  us  to  bear,  let  us  not  refuse  it 
as  did  Simon  the  Cyrenian  —  let  us  glory  in  the  Cross 
of  Christ. 


THE   HEAVENLY   PATTERN 


THE   HEAVENLY   PATTERN 

"See,  saith  he,  that  thou  make  all  things  according  to  the 
pattern  shewed  to  thee  in  the  mount."  —  Hebrews  8:5 

TT7E  have  in  the  book  of  Exodus  the  account  of 
VV  that  visit  which  Moses  paid  to  Jehovah  Him- 
self in  the  excellent  glory  above  Mount  Sinai  —  a 
visit  lasting  forty  days  and  forty  nights,  during  which 
time  Moses  received  from  God  most  explicit  instruc- 
tions concerning  a  tabernacle  which  he  was  to  make 
for  the  particular  dwelling  place  of  Jehovah  among 
his  people.  And  not  only  did  he  receive  instructions, 
as  we  might  say,  specifications,  concerning  the  struc- 
ture of  that  building,  but  he  also  saw  the  heavenly 
things,  the  heavenly  purpose,  the  great  truths  of 
which  that  building,  when  it  should  be  finished,  would 
be  but  a  type,  a  kind  of  parable  in  gold  and  linen  and 
brass  and  silver. 

In  other  words,  Moses  was  invited  up  into  the 
presence  of  God  and  into  the  vision  of  the  heavenly 
things  in  order  that  he  might  reproduce  in  type  the 
things  which  he  had  seen.  Again  and  again  was  given 
to  him  the  solemn  exhortation: 

"See,  saith  he,  that  thou  make  all  things  according  to  the 
pattern  shewed  to  thee  in  the  mount."  —  Hebrews  8:5 

269 


270  IN   MANY  PULPITS 

Nothing,  absolutely  nothing  was  left  to  Moses' 
originality  or  initiative.  A  perfect  plan  was  given 
to  him  and  the  most  elaborate  and  detailed  instruc- 
tions as  to  execution  of  the  plan,  and  his  responsi- 
bility began  and  ended  with  strict  and  implicit  obedi- 
ence to  the  instructions  which  he  had  received.  And 
my  purpose  is  to  try  and  draw  from  that  event,  to 
which  our  text  refers,  its  central  and  permanent  truth, 
—  that  Moses  was  commissioned  to  build  something 
on  earth  that  should  be  exactly  like  something  in 
heaven. 

Just  so,  we  are  set  in  the  world  to  have  visions,  to 
go  up  into  the  mount,  to  see,  in  the  presence  of  God, 
the  divine  truth  concerning  human  life,  and  then  to 
work  it  out  into  character  and  conduct.  I  think  it 
may  be  said  without  exaggeration,  without  qualifi- 
cation, that  in  a  very  real,  thorough,  broad  sense,  this 
sums  up  the  thought  of  Christian  living  and  of  the 
purpose  of  God  in  our  redemption. 

Now  I  believe  it  may  help  a  little,  if  we  think 
upon  that  singular  building  which  Moses  was  com- 
missioned to  build.  What  may  we  learn  from  the 
tabernacle  in  the  wilderness  that  shall  help  us  in 
reproducing,  in  character  and  conduct,  heavenly 
things?  The  commission  to  Moses  was  that  it  was 
to  be  beautiful.  The  life  that  you  and  I  are  commis- 
sioned to  live,  and  the  character  you  and  I  are  under 
responsibility  to  form,  must  then  be,  first  of  all, 
beautiful. 

There  have  been  many  ideals  of  character  and 
each  of  them,  no  doubt,  so  formed  under  Christian 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  271 

influence  that  they  contain  important  elements  of 
truth.  The  Puritan  character  was,  in  many  respects, 
most  admirable.  It  had  in  it  elements  of  strength, 
of  sincerity,  of  simplicity,  of  great  loyalty  to  God 
and  of  obedience  to  what  they  understood  to  be  the 
will  of  God.  No  fragmentary  form  of  character 
could  be  more  noble  than  the  Puritan  ideal;  and 
yet,  as  we  look  closely  at  that  ideal,  and  as  we  meas- 
ure it  up  against  Christ,  we  begin  to  see  that  it  is 
lacking  precisely  in  this  element  of  beauty.  I  might 
go  on  and  refer  to  other  ideals  of  character  which 
have  been  formed  by  the  people  of  God,  but  let  us 
rather  pass  by  all  these  incomplete  and  unsymmetri- 
cal  visions  of  life  and  think  of  Jesus  Christ. 

In  Him  there  is  nothing  lacking,  nothing  in  excess. 
Jesus  Christ  was  perfectly  strong.  No  Puritan  was 
ever  such  a  rock-man  as  He,  and  yet  there  was  noth- 
ing hard  or  repelling  in  Christ's  firmness;  it  was 
clothed  in  gentleness,  and  because  He  was  supremely 
strong,  He  could  be  supremely  gentle,  patient,  and 
sympathetic.  In  everything  God  makes  there  is  first 
of  all  order,  then  comes  symmetry.  You  remember 
in  the  21st  chapter  of  Revelation  the  description  of 
the  heavenly  Jerusalem  and  its  proportions;  the 
breadth  and  the  length  and  the  height  of  it  were 
equal.  That  is  God's  idea  of  symmetry.  First  of 
all,  then,  that  tabernacle  was  beautiful,  and  it  was 
beautiful  because  there  was  an  ordered  harmony  in 
it.  Everything  was  beautiful.  And  if  we  are  repro- 
ducing the  heavenly  character  here,  then  will,  accord- 
ing to  the  prayer  of  the  Psalmist, 


£79  IN  MANY  PULPITS 

"the  beauty  of  the  Lord  our  God  be  upon  us:" 

—  Psalms  go:  17 

I  should  say  the  second  characteristic  which  we 
need  to  notice  in  the  tabernacle  built  by  Moses  was 
its  costliness.  It  was  not  a  cheap  thing  which  Moses 
built.  God  did  not  propose  that  the  building  in 
which  His  glory  was  in  a  very  particular  and  local 
way  to  be  manifested  —  and  in  itself  a  type  of  the 
costliest  of  all  costly  offerings,  Jesus  Christ  —  should 
be  without  cost.  Everything  in  it  was  of  the  most  pre- 
cious materials.  The  very  boards  were  overlaid  with 
gold,  solid  gold.  The  seven-branched  candlestick  was 
of  gold.  There  was  embroidery  of  purple  and  scarlet 
and  red  and  blue  with  costliest  work.  The  Holy 
Spirit  endowed  the  craftsmen  with  more  than  earthly 
wisdom  and  skill  that  they  might  carve  and  em- 
broider and  engrave  the  beautiful  details  of  that 
edifice.  Splendid  jewels  flashed  from  the  breast-plate 
of  the  high  priest  and  glittered  upon  his  shoulders. 
Infinite  skill  of  weaving  and  carving  went  into  it. 
The  first  thought  was  beauty  then,  and  the  second, 
costliness. 

So  these  lives  of  ours  will  be  heavenly  in  propor- 
tion as  cost  has  gone  into  them.  First  of  all,  the 
unspeakable,  the  holy,  the  immeasurable  gift  and  cost 
of  our  redemption.  The  costliest  gift  that  heaven 
had  was  given  for  us,  and  we  shall  never  come  to 
the  acme  of  Christian  character  and  life  without  sac- 
rifice —  the  best  and  costliest  we  have  to  give.  It 
costs  the  renunciation  of  the  lesser  that  we  may  have 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  273 

the  greater,  that  we  may  grasp  the  choicest  things 
and  build  them  into  character. 

The  third  striking  characteristic  of  the  tabernacle 
that  I  should  like  to  mention  is  that  its  beauty  was 
chiefly  inward.  All  the  glory  of  the  gold,  and  all 
the  beauty  of  the  engravers'  and  weavers'  and  em- 
broiderers' art  was  covered  from  outward  observation. 
Christ  was  like  that.  He  was  not  a  man  of  marvelous 
beauty  of  visage  and  outward  splendor  of  appear- 
ance: 

"When  we  shall  see  him,  there  is  no  beauty  that  we  should 
desire  him."  —  Isaiah  53:2 

Here,  eminently,  is  a  lesson  for  our  day.  The  great 
temptation  is  to  make  religion  a  matter  of  externali- 
ties alone;  but  to  be  rather  than  to  do,  is  the  central 
thought  of  God  with  regard  to  the  character  of  His 
people;   to  be  beautiful  within. 

There  is  the  danger  of  hypocrisy,  the  danger  that 
we  shall  seem  to  be  more  devoted,  more  consecrated, 
more  engaged  with  the  things  of  God  than  we  really 
are;  and  if  I  read  aright  the  mind  of  Christ,  there 
is  nothing  for  which  He  feels  such  an  aversion  as  for 
hypocrisy.  And  the»  essence  of  hypocrisy  is  trying 
to  seem  to  be  a  little  sweeter,  a  little  better,  a 
little  more  devoted  than  we  really  are.  When  Moses 
came  down  from  his  forty  days'  visit  with  Jehovah, 
he  had  caught  the  very  radiance  of  God's  glory,  but 

"Moses  wist  not  that  the  skin  of  his  face  shone" 

Exodus  34: 2Q 


274  IN    MANY   PULPITS 

There  is  nothing  more  odious  than  self-conscious 
piety. 

And  the  tabernacle  was  not  a  very  great  or  impos- 
ing structure.  The  smallest  chapel  in  St.  Peter's  at 
Rome  would  hold  it.  Does  the  application  not  make 
itself?  We  are  not  called  so  much  to  be  and  do 
something  great  or  imposing,  as  to  beautify  our  place 
in  life.  You  and  I  are  not  very  important  individuals; 
we  are  called  to  build  the  tabernacle  of  character  in 
the  lowly  walks  of  life,  —  we  are  not  filling  very 
exalted  stations.  We  are  likely  to  be  called  upon  to 
build  just  along  some  dusty  highway,  where  the  great 
mass  of  men  must  walk  and  suffer  and  serve,  than  to 
build  it  upon  some  heaven-kissed  peak  where  the 
whole  world  shall  see  it. 

In  modern  life  there  is  a  great  desire  to  be  con- 
spicuous. It  influences  us  like  a  vice.  We  want  to 
be  known.  We  want  to  be  pillars.  But,  have  you 
ever  thought  that  the  chinking  stones  are  just  as 
essential  in  the  temple  which  God  is  building,  as  the 
great  massive  columns  that  rest  upon  them,  but 
which  all  men  can  see?  What  does  it  matter,  after 
all,  for  a  few  brief  years,  where  we  are  or  what  work 
we  are  engagd  in,  if  only  it  be  we  are  like  Christ  as  we 
move  among  men. 

Lastly  I  want  to  remark  upon  our  supreme  danger. 
It  is  that  we  shall  change  the  plan.  The  repeated  ex- 
hortation to  Moses  was,  — 

"See,  saith  he,  that  thou  make  all  things  according  to  the 
pattern  shewed  to  thee  in  the  mount."  —  Hebrews  8<5 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  275 

Just  because  of  the  danger  that  Moses  would  forget 
it  and  change  it  later  on.  So  there  is  danger,  that  as 
we  recede  from  the  place  of  vision,  and  as  the  vision 
itself  becomes  dulled  in  our  memories,  we  shall  build 
lesser,  baser  things  than  the  vision  demands.  And 
perhaps  the  place  at  which  failure  enters  is  at  that 
point  where  we  want  to  substitute  brass  for  gold, 
even  wood  for  brass.  And  especially  too,  when  Chris- 
tian ideals  are  lowered  by  the  infusion  of  pagan 
ideals; — heathen  philosophies  in  the  pulpit,  and 
pretty  little  formulas  for  Christian  living  that  might 
have  come  bodily  out  of  any  pagan  religion. 

The  danger  is  that  we  shall  build  less  of  gold,  and 
fine  linen,  and  purple  and  scarlet  and  blue;  that  we 
shall  put  paste  jewels  into  the  breast-plate  of  the 
high  priest;  that  we  shall  forget,  in  the  little  things, 
to  make  life  and  character  acording  to  the  pattern 
that  was  shown  to  us  by  Christ. 

"But  Christ  being  come  an  high  priest  of  good  things  to 
come,  by  a  greater  and  more  perfect  tabernacle  not  made 
with  hands"  —  Hebrews  q:ii 

"It  was  therefore  necessary  that  the  patterns  of  things  in 
the  heavens  should  be  purified  with  these: 
For  Christ  is  not  entered  into  the  holy  places  made  with 
hands,  which  are  the  figures  of  the  true:   but  into  heaven 
itself,  now  to  appear  in  the  presence  of  God  for  us:" 

—  Hebrews  9:23,  24 


COMPENSATING  VISIONS 


COMPENSATING  VISIONS 


"When  thou  shalt  make  his  soul  an  offering  for  sin,  he  shall 
see  his  seed  .  .  . 

He  shall  see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul  and  shall  be  sat- 
isfied:"—  Isaiah  53:10,  11 

THE  fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah  is  one  of  the 
prophetic  foreviews  of  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus 
Christ.  It  should  be  studied  with  the  twenty-second 
Psalm.    The  latter  is  descriptive. 

"I  am  poured  out  like  water,  and  all  my  bones  are  out  of 
joint;  my  heart  is  like  wax;  it  is  melted  in  the  midst 
of  my  bowels. 

My  strength  is  dried  up  like  a  potsherd;  and  my  tongue 
cleaveth  to  my  jaws;  and  thou  hast  brought  me  into 
the  dust  of  death. 

For  dogs  have  compassed  me:  the  assembly  of  the 
wicked  have  inclosed  me:  they  pierced  my  hands  and 
my  feet. 

I  may  tell  all  my  bones;  they  look  and  stare  upon  me. 
They  part  my  garments  among  them,  and  cast  lots  upon 
my  vesture."  —  Psalms  22:14-18 

A  marvelous  description  of  death  by  crucifixion. 
The  profuse  sweat  of  intense  physical  agony,  the 
dislocation  (of  shoulders  and  pelvis),  heart  failure, 
thirst,  the  pierced  hands  and  feet,  semi-nudity  and 

279 


>o  IN  MANY  PULPITS 

hurt  modesty  —  all  these  accompanying  agonies  of 
that  most  agonizing  death  are  set  forth  with  literal 
exactness.    Even  the  desolate  cry, 

"My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?" 

—  Psalms  22:1 

is  given.  What  a  proof  to  any  candid  mind  of  the 
inspiration  of  the  Bible!  How  should  David  foresee 
these  things.  Crucifixion  was  a  mode  of  execution 
wholly  unknown  to  ancient  Israel.  It  was  a  Roman 
invention  of  later  date.  The  answer  is  that  David 
was  an  inspired  man.  But  if  the  twenty-second 
Psalm  is  a  description  of  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ 
written  a  thousand  years  before  the  event,  the  fifty- 
third  chapter  of  Isaiah  is  a  doctrinal  explanation  of 
the  crucifixion  written  700  years  before  the  event. 
When  we  have  read  David's  wonderful  vision  of 
the  cross  we  are  moved  to  ask  with  the  divine  Sufferer 
Himself,  "Why?"  Why  was  such  a  Being  forsaken 
to  such  a  death?  Isaiah  answers  the  question:  Jesus 
Christ  suffered  vicariously.  He  who  had  never 
sinned  was  forsaken  that  we  who  have  sinned  might 
not  be  forsaken. 

"Surely    he    hath    borne    our    griefs,    and    carried    our 
sorrows:  .   .  . 

But  he  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions,  he  was 
bruised  for  our  iniquities;  the  chastisement  of  our  peace 
was  upon  him;  and  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed. 
All  we  like  sheep  have  gone  astray;  we  have  turned 
every  one  to  his  own  way;  and  the  Lord  hath  laid  on 
him  the  iniquity  of  us  all."  —  Isaiah  53:4-6 

"for  the  transgression  of  my  people  was  he  stricken." 

—  Isaiah  53:8 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  281 

And  absolutely  no  other  explanation  consistent 
with  the  goodness  of  God  can  be  given.  Whatever 
any  other  man  has  suffered  was  but  "buffeting  for 
his  faults,"  who  deserved,  in  strict  justice,  far  more. 
But  Jesus  Christ  had  no  faults.  He  had  always1 
perfectly  loved,  perfectly  obeyed  God.  Such  a  Being, 
in  a  morally  governed  universe,  could  only  suffer 
for  others.  And  since,  as  Plato  said,  "Sin  and  suffer- 
ing are  riveted  together,"  whoever  would  'bear  our 
sins,'  must  of  necessity  take  our  place  in  suffering. 

But  while  He,  as  our  Substitute,  must  suffer  in  our 
stead,  the  compassion  of  His  father  could  and  did 
light  up  that  awful  darkness  with  the  vision  of  the 
results  of  so  great  suffering.  Christ,  in  other  words, 
was  given  to  see  that  His  pains  were  birth  pangs; 
that  His  agonies  were  not  merely  a  doing  right  by 
the  moral  order  of  the  universe,  an  awful  but  perfect 
vindication  of  the  holy  law,  a  final  demonstration 
of  His  own  horror  of  sin  and  of  God's  necessary  hatred 
of  it  —  not  merely  thus  were  His  sufferings  to  be 
interpreted;  but  that  those  very  sufferings  were  truly 
material,  the  "travail"  out  of  which  was  being  born 
the  new  creation  —  this  He  was  permitted  to  see. 
Who  can  estimate  the  enormous  joy  of  that  vision? 

"He  shall  see  his  seed,"  —  Isaiah  53:10 

"He  shall  see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul  and  shall  be  sat- 
isfied."—  Isaiah  53:11 

The 

"corn  of  wheat"  —  John  12:24 

had  indeed  come  to  the  moment  of  death,  but  in  the 


282  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

very  act  of  dissolution  He  felt  Himself  passing  into 
countless  corns  of  wheat.  If  a  grain  of  actual  wheat 
were  conscious  of  itself,  could  feel  all  our  human 
drawing  back  from  death,  but  could  just  at  the  mo- 
ment of  ceasing  to  be,  find  its  consciousness  reborn 
into  the  hope  of  the  new  powerful  upspringing  life 
of  the  blade  forcing  itself  upward  toward  the  light 
and  downward  into  the  warm  soft  soil,  —  if  this,  I 
say,  could  be,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  new  joy  of 
the  new  life  would  swallow  up  the  transitory  pain 
of  death.  Just  so,  Isaiah  tells  us,  Jesus  Christ  saw 
the  myriads  of  the  redeemed  all  born  again  into  the 
very  divine  life  which  was,  for  three  days  and  nights, 
to  forsake  His  torn  and  agonized  body.  Think  what 
Jesus  saw  as  He  hung  there  in  the  darkness. 

He  saw  every  individual  who  would  be  saved 
through  His  death.    Paul  said: 

"who  loved  me,  and  gave  himself  for  me."  —  Galatians  2:20 

And  if  Paul,  then  each  of  us.  Does  this  seem  hard 
of  belief?  Why,  even  finite  creatures,  men  and 
women,  by  thousands,  have  testified  that  in  the 
act  of  drowning,  every  act  of  their  lives  passed  before 
them  in  an  instant  of  time!  And  He  who  hung 
dying  on  the  cross  was  the  God-man.  To  His  human 
consciousness,  His  human  capacity,  must  be  added 
the  divine  consciousness  —  the  divine  capacity. 

He  saw  a  little  group  of  fishermen,  who,  for  the 
most  part  were  Galileans,  uncouth  of  speech,  un- 
taught in  the  wisdom  of  the  world,  inelegant  and 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  283 

poor,  invade  in  His  name  the  Greek  world  of  culture 
and  the  Roman  world  of  power.  He  saw  hell  moved  to 
its  depths,  and  the  whole  power  of  Rome,  ten  times  in 
two  centuries,  launched  against  an  ever-growing  but 
always  small  and  obscure  band  of  believers.  He  saw 
them  in  the  arena,  in  prisons,  in  slave  pens  and  cata- 
combs; and  He  saw  them,  pale  with  200  years  of 
suffering,  mount  the  throne  of  the  Caesars. 

He  saw  the  dawn  across  the  long  night  of  centuries. 
He  saw  the  world  acknowledge  His  ethic.  He  saw 
hospitals  and  orphanages  and  schools.  He  saw  wo- 
man no  longer  the  slave  of  man.  He  saw  childhood 
made  sacred.  Across  the  long  conflict  of  good  and 
evil  He  saw  His  own  second  coming  in  glory,  and 
the  earth,  so  long  drenched  with  blood  and  tears, 
swing  into  the  peace  and  blessing  of  the  millennium. 
And  He  saw  till  God  had  wiped  away  all  tears  from 
all  faces,  till  there  was 

"no  more  death,  neither  sorrow,  nor  crying," 

—  Revelation  21:4 

He  saw 

"  a  pure  river  of  water  of  life,  clear  as  crystal,  proceeding 
out  of  the  throne  of  God  and  of  the  Lamb  " 

— Revelation  21:4 

and  He  saw  His  servants,  reigning 

"forever  and  ever."  —  Revelation  22:5 

His  was  the  triumph  of  joy  over  pain.  When  the 
vision  was  at  its  climax  He  said, 


884  IK  MANY  PULPITS 

•It  is  finished;  and  he  bowed  his  head,  and  gave  up  the 
ghost."  —  John  ro:jO 

This  is  what  the  writer  of  Hebrews  means  when  he 
says  that  Jesus 

"for  the  joy  that  was  set  before  him  endured  the  cross, 
despising  the  shame"  —  Hebrews  12:2 

Have  we  not  here  a  divine  law?  Is  the  compensa- 
tory vision  of  Jesus  Christ  a  solitary  instance?  By 
no  means.  Undoubtedly  the  crucifixion  vision  vouch- 
safed to  the  dying  Lord  was  unique  in  its  extent  and 
power.  But  it  was  after  all  but  the  highest,  most 
sublime  instance  of  a  great  principle  of  the  divine 
dealing. 

When  Moses  was  about  to  die  he 

"went  up  from  the  plains  of  Moab  unto  the  mountain  of 
Nebo,  to  the  top  of  Pisgah,  that  is  over  against  Jericho. 
And  the  Lord  shewed  him  all  the  land  of  Gilead,  unto 
Dan, 

And  all  Napthali,  and  the  land  of  Ephraim,  and  Man- 
asseh,  and  all  the  land  of  Judah,  unto  the  utmost  sea, 
And  the  south,  and  the  plain  of  the  valley  of  Jericho, 
the  city  of  palm  trees,  unto  Zoar." —  Deuteronomy  34:1-3 

What  did  that  mean?  It  meant  that  Moses  was 
permitted  to  see  that  in  behalf  of  which  he  had 
labored  and  suffered.  As  his  eye  swept  that  match- 
less panorama  of  verdure  and  fruitfulness,  the  blue 
of  distant  mountains,  whose  clefts  in  the  afternoon 
sun  seemed  inlaid  with  sapphire  and  emerald,  as 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.  SCOFIELD  285 

he  saw  the  flashing  of  distant  waters  and  the  wav- 
ing of  tall  trees,  we  may  well  believe  that  his  great 
heart  beat  high,  even  though  its  beatings  were  soon  to 
be  stilled  under  the  kiss  of  God ;  and  that  as  he  turned 
to  see  the  desert  of  the  wanderings,  and  recalled  all 
its  weariness  and  pain,  Moses  murmured:  "The  least 
of  yonder  glories  is  compensation  for  it  all." 
When  Paul  was 

"ready  to  be  offered" — //  Timothy  4:6 

and  knew  that  the  time  of  departing  was  near,  he 
sang  his  swan  song  of  triumph. 

"I  have  fought  a  good  fight,  I  have  finished  my  course,  I 
have  kept  the  faith: 

Henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of  righteous- 
ness, which  the  Lord,  the  righteous  judge,  shall  give  me 
at  that  day:"—//  Timothy  4:7,8. 

He  thought  of  the  years  of  storm  and  stress  since 
he  met  Jesus  on  his  way  to  Damascus.    He  said: 

"Of  the  Jews  five  times  received  I  forty  stripes  save  one. 
Thrice  was  I  beaten  with  rods,  once  was  I  stoned,  thrice 
I  suffered  shipwreck,  a  night  and  a  day  I  have  been  in 
the  deep."  —  //  Corinthians  11:24,  25 

"In  weariness  and  painfulness,  in  watchings  often,  in  hunger 
and  thirst,  in  fastings  often,  in  cold  and  nakedness." 

—  //  Corinthians  11:27 

But  one  gleam  of  the  jewels  of  that  crown,  one  look 
into  the  deep  eyes  of  the  blessed  Lord,  one  tone  of 
His  voice  as  He  said,  "Well  done,  Paul;   well  done, 


jst;  IN  MANY  PULPITS 

valiant  soldier,  enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord," 
more  than  paid  for  it  all. 

We  have  these  balancings  of  glory  against  pain. 
Where  do  we  find  them?  In  the  promises  of  God. 
You  who  are  weary  of  heart  look  up! 

"It  is  a  faithful  saying:     For  if  we  be  dead  with  him,  we 
shall  also  live  with  him: 
If  we  suffer  we  shall  also  reign  with  him." 

—  //  Timothy  2:11, 12 


BUSY   ABOUT   THE 
WRONG  THING 


BUSY  ABOUT   THE 
WRONG   THING 

'And  as  thy  servant  was  busy  here  and  there,  he  was  gone." 

—  /  Kings  20:40 


T 


HE  text  is  part  of  a  little  parable,  spoken  by 
an  unnamed  prophet  to  King  Ahab. 


"Thy  servant  went  out  into  the  midst  of  the  battle;  and, 
behold,  a  man  turned  aside,  and  brought  a  man  unto  me, 
and  said,  Keep  this  man:  if  by  any  means  he  be  missing, 
then  shall  thy  life  be  for  his  life,  or  else  thou  shalt  pay  a 
talent  of  silver. 

And    as  thy  servant  was  busy  here  and  there,  he  was 
gone."  —  /  Kings  20: 39,  40 

Given  a  man  to  keep,  he  had  lost  the  man.  And  he 
had  lost  him  because  he  was  too  busy  to  keep  him. 
Evidently  the  servant  considered  that  an  excuse.  Had 
he  been  idle,  then  indeed  the  loss  of  the  man  would 
have  been  an  unpardonable  offence.  Justly  enough, 
the  king  found  that  but  an  aggravation  of  the  fault. 
If  one  to  whom  we  had  entrusted  millions  should  lose 
them,  would  we  not  find  it  a  poor  excuse  that  he  had 
been  busy  picking  up  pennies  which  he  had  dropped? 
Now  let  us  leave  King  Ahab  and  the  nameless 
prophet,  and  come  down  the  centuries  to  ourselves 

289 


290  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

for  an  application.  It  is  an  easy  application  to  make, 
for  we  too  have  been  given  a  man  to  keep  and  our 
most  pressing  danger  is  that  we  shall  lose  that  man, 
just  because  we  are  too  busy  to  keep  him.  The  battle 
is  the  battle  of  life,  the  man  is  ourself,  and  the  peril 
of  loss  lurks  in  the  engrossing,  absorbing  character 
of  modern  life.  Never  in  all  the  history  of  the  world 
was  the  battle  of  life  so  bitter,  so  merciless,  so  ruth- 
less as  now.  It  is  not  without  an  instinctive  sense  of 
fitness  that  the  common  speech  of  the  day  calls  the 
chief  business  men  "captains  of  industry."  Business 
is  organized  on  a  vast  scale;  the  unit  counts  for 
nothing  —  the  mass  for  everything.  The  hours  of 
the  day  are  not  enough  for  toil,  business  burns  up 
the  nights  as  well.  God's  rest  day  is  ruthlessly  ap- 
propriated ;  men  are  worn  out,  burnt  out  rather,  and 
left  behind  without  thought  or  mercy. 

And  instinctively  we  feel  that  we  must  keep  up 
with  the  rush  or  be  trampled  under  foot.  Lately  a 
famous  cartoonist  drew  a  caricature  of  himself,  in 
which  unwittingly  he  characterized  us  all.  He  repre- 
sented himself  grimly  walking  on  a  treadmill.  Be- 
hind him  were  sharp  spikes  which  effectually  for- 
bade a  pause.  Before  him  —  as  a  wisp  of  straw  is 
dangled  before  a  horse  to  lure  him  to  a  ceaseless  task 
—  hung  a  dollar  mark,  the  goal  of  his  weary  tramp; 
a  tramp  that  never  ceased,  a  goal  never  reached. 
What  an  amiable  satire  on  modern  business  life! 
With  a  very  slight  change,  it  might  be  made  to  apply 
with  equal  point  to  modern  social  life.  What  is  it 
but  the  ceaseless  round  of  the  treadmill?    Before  the 


WITH  DR.  C.  I.  SCOFIELD  291 

man  the  elusive  dollar,  —  before  his  wife  an  equally- 
elusive  phantom,  pleasure.  And  in  this  two-fold 
pursuit  more  men  and  women  are  lost  than  in  crime 
or  debauchery.  Crime  appeals  to  the  social  pervert, 
debauchery  to  the  social  degenerate;  but  on  the 
treadmill  called  "business,"  and  on  the  treadmill 
called  "society,"  more  manhood  and  womanhood  is 
lost  than  all  the  churches  are  saving. 

The  man  given  us  to  keep  is  the  man  whom  each 
of  us  calls  "myself."  When  the  battle  is  over,  when 
at  last  for  each  of  us  the  tramp  of  the  treadmill  ceases, 
when  we  are  lifted  from  the  wheel  and  another  takes 
our  place  —  to  be  in  turn  worn  out  and  cast  aside  — 
the  one  demand  made  upon  each  of  us  will  be  for 
the  man  who  was  given  us  to  keep.  Not  —  "What 
money  did  you  gather?  Not  —  "What  fame  did  you 
achieve?"  Not  —  "What  space  did  you  occupy  in 
the  social  papers?"  But," What  man  are  you?"  And 
it  never  will  do  to  reply:  "Lord, 

'as  thy  servant  was  busy  here  and  there'  —  /  Kings  20:40 

the  manhood,  the  womanhood  dwindled;  the  soul 
shriveled  to  the  inconceivably  mean  measure  of  that 
which  I  pursued:    Lord, — 

'as  thy  servant  was  busy  here  and  there'  —  /  Kings  20:40 

the  man,  the  woman  Thou  gavest  me  to  keep  was 
gone." 

If,  anticipating  the  day,  yet  future,  thank  God, 
when  the  Lord  of  life  will  demand  of  us  the  man  He 
gave  us  to  keep,  we  were  to  stop  today  and  make  that 
demand  of  ourselves,  what  answer  could  we  give? 


IN    MANY    PULPITS 

Where  is  the  boy  He  gave  us  to  keep?  As  each 
o\  us  remembers  himself  in  boyhood,  I  am  sure  some 
accusing  sense  must  come  over  us  all  of  foul  wrong 
done  to  the  boy.  Might  I  not  have  done  better  by 
that  little  fellow  who  was  then  that  strange  being 
whom  I  now  call  "myself"?  Thirty  years  elapsed 
between  the  surrender  at  Appomattox  and  my  next 
visit  to  Richmond.  I  arrived  early  in  the  morning  of  a 
summer  day  and  walked  over  to  the  Capitol  square. 
The  larger  facts  were  unchanged.  There  was  the 
old  Capitol,  under  whose  roof  I  had  heard  Yancey 
and  Hunter  and  Stephens  and  a  host  of  the  giants  of 
that  day.  The  great  trees  were  still  there  and  across 
the  square  the  executive  mansion  of  Virginia,  in  whose 
doorway  I  had  for  the  first  time  seen  Robert  E. 
Lee.  All  that  came  easily  back.  But  where  was  the 
boy  in  Confederate  butternut,  who  had  seen  it  all? 
My  answer  was  the  foolish  one  of  the  prophet's 
parable: 

"As  thy  servant  was  busy  here  and  there,  he  was  gone." 

—  /  Kings  20:40 

And  I  felt  with  a  sudden  sternness,  that  were  another 
to  deal  now  by  my  boy  as  I  had  dealt  by  that  war 
time  boy  "myself,"  I  should  hold  him  to  a  strict 
accounting. 

What  have  we  —  pursuing  still  that  self-judgment 
of  which  I  have  spoken  —  done  with  the  young  man 
who  was  given  us  to  keep?  Have  we  lost  him  too,  in 
being  busy?  Is  this  careworn,  bowed  man  of  today 
—  worn  and  bowed  in  the  petty,  contemptible  strife 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  293 

for  dollars  and  place  and  position  —  what  we  have 
made  of  him?  Happy  indeed,  if  we  have  not  made 
him  into  a  cruel  and  selfish  monster. 

You  remember  Andrew  Lang's  verses  on   three 
portraits  of  Prince  Charlie,  the  last  of  the  Stuarts: 

1731 

Beautiful  face  of  a  child, 

Lighted  with  laughter  and  glee, 
Mirthful,  and  tender,  and  wild, 

My  heart  is  heavy  for  thee ! 

1744 

Beautiful  face  of  a  youth, 

As  an  eagle  poised  to  fly  forth 
To  the  old  land  loyal  of  truth, 

To  the  hills  and  the  sounds  of  the  North: 
Fair  face,  daring  and  proud, 

Lo!  the  shadow  of  doom,  even  now, 
The  fate  of  thy  line,  like  a  cloud, 

Rests  on  the  grace  of  thy  brow! 

1773 

Cruel  and  angry  face, 

Hateful  and  heavy  with  wine, 
Where  are  the  gladness,  the  grace, 

The  beauty,  the  mirth  that  were  thine? 
Ah,  my  Prince,  it  were  well  — 

Hadst  thou  to  the  gods  been  dear, — 
To  have  fallen  where  Keppoch  fell, 

With  the  war-pipe  loud  in  thine  ear! 
To  have  died  with  never  a  stain 

On  the  fair  White  Rose  of  Renown, 
To  have  fallen,  fighting  in  vain, 

For,  thy  father,  thy  faith,  and  thy  crown! 


KM  IN   MANY  PULPITS 

No,  we  cannot  accuse  ourselves  of  idleness,  but  we 
may  have  been  busy  about  the  wrong  thing.  We 
have  been  given  a  man  to  keep  and  if  we  have  lost 
him,  all  our  achievements,  however  splendid,  are 
worse  than  useless. 

"For  what  shall  it  profit  a  man,  if  he  shall  gain  the  whole 
world,  and  lose  his  own  soul?"  —  Mark  8:36 

There  are  three  important  senses  in  which,  in  the 
rush  and  preoccupation  of  our  modern  life,  we  are  in 
danger  of  losing  the  man  given  us  to  keep.  And 
first  I  place  the  eternal  sense.  For  this  man  given  us 
to  keep,  whom  each  of  us  calls  "myself"  is  an  im- 
mortal being.  He  is  a  special  creation  of  God.  An 
animal  as  to  his  body,  he  is  "theopneustos"  —  God- 
breathed  —  as  to  his  essential  being.  He  is  the  "off- 
spring" of  the  Eternal  Father.  He  lives  in  a  universe 
the  final  basis  of  which  is  moral  and  spiritual,  not 
material.  He  cannot  escape  from  that  universe  if 
he  would.  He  must  meet  God,  and  must  meet  Him 
on  the  one  single  issue  —  his  personal  treatment  of 
the  Son  of  God. 

Furthermore,  this  man  who  was  given  us  to  keep 
is  the  raw  material  out  of  which  the  renewing  spirit 
makes  sons  of  God  by  the  marvel  of  the  new  birth. 
That  is  the  true  destiny  of  the  man  given  us  to  keep. 
Made  a  little  lower  than  the  angels,  his  destiny,  in  the 
divine  plan,  and  the  divine  desire,  is  far  above  the 
angels  in  an  eternal  oneness  with  God  Himself.  For 
that  reason  he  has  been  made  capable  of  infinite  per- 
fection, infinite  bliss. 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  295 

At  God's  right  hand  —  where  the  man  given  us  to 
keep  belongs  —  are  pleasures  forevermore.  Pleasures 
of  the  senses  purified  from  sin;  pleasures  of  the 
intellect,  emancipated  from  fleshly  limitations;  pleas- 
ures of  the  soul  beyond  description  or  conception. 
But  along  with  this  infinite  capacity  of  enjoyment,  the 
man  given  us  to  keep  has  an  infinite  capacity  of  suf- 
fering. If  he  turns  from  the  felicities  of  manhood 
made  holy,  he  must  endure  the  woes  of  manhood 
made  devilish.  It  is  for  you  and  me  to  say  which 
of  these  eternal  destinies,  the  man  given  us  to  keep 
shall  have.    What  have  we  chosen? 

We  may  lose  the  man  given  us  to  keep  in  an  im- 
portant personal  sense.  He  is  susceptible  of  all  but 
illimitable  development.  He  has  an  intellectual 
capacity  to  receive  knowledge,  to  reason  upon  that 
knowledge,  to  light  the  flame  of  imagination,  to  com- 
mune with  the  sages  and  the  seers,  to  enter  —  humbly 
it  may  be,  and  at  their  feet  —  the  society  of  thinkers, 
poets,  of  statesmen  and  philanthropists  who  have  en- 
larged the  empire  of  the  mind  and  filled  it  with  the 
most  intellectual  delights. 

The  man  given  us  to  keep  has  an  emotional  nature 
capable  of  love,  of  friendship,  of  the  holy  family 
relationships.  He  may  live  in  spheres  of  love  or 
hate.  He  may  love  nobly  or  ignobly.  He  may  fill 
this  capacity  of  his  with  heaven  or  hell.  What  have 
we  done  with  him?  Have  we  taught  him  to  live 
greatly,  even  though  obscurely;  or  to  live  basely, 
even  though  conspicuously?  Have  we  made  of  him 
a  wise  man  or  a  fool?     Have  you  noticed  that  the 


296  IN  MANY  PULPITS 

man  whom  Jesus  Christ  called  a  fool  was  a  most 
successful  man,  as  the  world  counts  success?    He  was 

a  man  who  had  much  goods,  enough  for  many  years, 
laid  up;  but  he  was  a  fool  because  he  invited  his 
soul  to  live  on  these  things. 

Finally  there  is  another  sense  in  which  we  may 
lose  the  man  given  us  to  keep.  We  may  teach  him 
to  center  his  life  energies  and  capacities  upon  himself, 
and  so,  whatever  we  may  have  taught  him  to  call 
himself,  make  of  him  a  pagan.  For  just  as  truly  as 
Jesus  Christ  brought  a  new  life  into  the  world  and 
opened  the  door  of  it  to  all  who  will  trust  Him,  just 
as  surely  did  He  bring  a  new  philosophy  of  life. 
Before  Christ,  religion  consisted  in  certain  sacrifices 
and  in  personal  affection  for  God.  Life  then  was 
hoarded.  But  the  religion  which  Jesus  Christ  de- 
clares to  be  "pure"  is  — 

"To  visit  the  fatherless  and  widows  in  their  affliction,  and 
to  keep  himself  unspotted  from  the  world."  —  James  1:27 

Have  we  made  the  man,  given  us  to  keep,  clean, 
brave  and  knightly  in  all  unselfish  service?  Have 
we  developed  him  along  all  the  lines  of  his  varied 
capacity?  Above  all,  have  we  brought  him  into  right 
relations  with  Jesus  Christ? 


JOY 


JOY 


'That  they  might  have  my  joy  fulfilled  in  themselves." 

—  John  17:13 

IT  is  not  uncharitable  to  say  that  many  people  in 
this  world  are  content  if  they  be  merry;  they  seek 
nothing  higher  from  life  than  such  a  surface  stirring 
of  their  shallow  nature  as  pleasure  brings.  If  they 
may  put  far  from  them  the  burden  and  sorrow  and 
care  of  this  world,  and  forget  its  griefs  in  passing  jest, 
they  are  content.  Better  than  this,  and  the  pursuit  I 
would  fain  believe  of  a  far  greater  number,  is  happi- 
ness. Happiness  is  an  infinitely  higher  thing  than 
pleasure.  That  it  is  the  desire  of  God  His  children 
should  be  happy,  is  a  fact  to  which  page  after  page 
of  the  Bible  bears  witness:  — 

"That  they  might  have  my  joy  fulfilled  in  themselves." 

—  John  17:13 

But  our  text  holds  something  which  is  better  even 
than  happiness  —  and  that  is  joyousness.  I  find  it 
is  not  easy,  at  least  for  me,  to  define  precisely  what 
joy  fulness,  in  the  Scriptural  sense  of  the  word,  is. 
Perhaps  it  might  be  defined  as  happiness  overflowing, 
happiness  militant  and  aggressive;  happiness  going 
out  and  beyond  itself,  too  full  to  be  used  up  in  mere 
personal  satisfaction,  an  overabundance  of  happiness; 
happiness  alive  and  aglow;    happiness  reaching  out 

299 


300  IN  MANY  PULPITS 

and  desiring  to  shine  beyond  the  limits  of  one's  own 
soul. 

It  may  help  us  at  the  beginning  to  fix  in  our  minds 
three  things  which  stand  over  against  sorrow  or  pain: 
pleasure,  existing  for  and  ending  upon  self;  happi- 
ness, a  deeper,  nobler  thing;  and  joyousness,  which 
is  the  overflowing  of  happiness.  If  happiness  might 
be  compared  to  a  tranquil  lake  embosomed  in  pro- 
tecting hills,  joyousness  would  be  like  a  mighty  river 
flowing  out. 

"That  they  might  have  my  joy  fulfilled  in  themselves." 

—  John  17:13 

We  have  here  two  simple  ideas:  Jesus  Christ  filled 
with  joy  —  ourselves  privileged  to  partake  of  that 
joy  until  we  are  filled  with  it. 

Now  we  do  not  habitually  think  of  Jesus  Christ  as 
joyful.  Long  before  His  manifestation,  the  prophet 
Isaiah  had  said  of  Him  that  He  would  be 

"a  man  of  sorrows,  and  acquainted  with  grief:" 

—  Isaiah  53  :j 

and  so  it  was.  But  observe,  "a  man  of  sorrows,"  not 
of  melancholy.  We  cannot  think  of  Jesus  Christ  as 
moping  through  life;  we  cannot  think  of  Him  as 
turning  fretfully  toward  His  burden;  as  thinking  of 
His  wrongs,  of  His  throne  denied  Him,  of  His  people 
rejecting  Him,  and  of  His  poverty  and  humiliation 
in  a  world  which  He  had  made.  We  have  a  very 
poor  conception  indeed  of  the  character  of  Jesus 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  301 

Christ,  if  we  think  it  was  these  things  which  made 
Him  "a  man  of  sorrows." 

Yet  He  was  a  "man  of  sorrows."  He  said  in  Geth- 
semane : 

"My  soul  is  exceeding  sorrowful,  even  unto  death" 

—  Matthew  26:38 

But  habitually  He  speaks  of  His  joyfulness.  This 
is  the  paradox  of  Christ's  life. 

"A  man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief;" 

—  Isaiah  53:3 

yet  bearing  those  sorrows  upon  a  flood-tide,  as  it 
were,  of  a  mighty  joy.  And  the  joy  was  more  than 
the  sorrow.  An  exultant  and  joyful  man  of  sorrows 
—  let  us  try  to  understand  this  paradox. 

Have  you  ever  noticed  that  the  nearer  Jesus  came 
to  the  cross,  the  more  He  spoke  of  His  joy?  You 
do  not  find  Him  testifying  much  of  His  joyfulness  in 
the  earlier  part  of  His  ministry,  and  I  believe  not 
once  in  that  which  is  called  "the  year  of  public  favor," 
when  the  multitudes  thronged  Him  and  it  seemed  as 
if  the  nation  were  really  turning  to  the  long  expected 
Messiah.  But  as  Jesus  went  on,  drawing  ever  nearer 
to  Calvary,  as  the  burden  of  the  shame  and  sin  and 
sorrow  of  the  world  began  to  gather  in  awful  dark- 
ness over  Him,  observe  how  He  speaks  more  and 
more  of  His  joyfulness;  and  in  the  closing  admoni- 
tions and  instructions  in  the  latter  chapters  of  John's 
Gospel,  there  is  a  constant  reference  to  the  deep  joy 


808  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

which  filled  Jesus.  Just  when  the  sorrow  is  be- 
coming deepest,  the  joyfulness  seems  to  rise  above  it 
and  triumph  over  it.  If  we  ponder  that,  and  connect 
it  with  the  prophet's  explanation  of  the  sorrows  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ: 

"Surely  he  hath  borne  our  griefs,  and  carried  our  sorrows:" 

—  Isaiah  53:4 

I  think  we  shall  be  upon  the  very  verge  of  solving 
the  paradox. 

In  other  words  —  and  is  it  not  very  simple  —  Jesus 
found  His  supreme  joy  in  bearing  the  sorrow  of 
others.  He  was  not  joyful  in  spite  of  having  the  priv- 
ilege of  getting  underneath  the  sorrow  and  burden 
and  guilt  of  the  world,  but  He  was  joyful  because  of 
this  privilege.  It  was  the  great  fountain  head  of 
His  joy,  the  very  source  of  it.  He  found  His  joy 
in  the  cross. 

We  can  conceive  of  that,  I  think,  if  we  are  willing 
to  separate  ourselves  for  a  moment  from  that  shrink- 
ing which  we  all  feel  at  the  thought  of  pain  and 
sorrow,  and  get  upon  the  nobler  side  of  our  own  souls. 
We  can  understand  that  such  a  Being  as  Jesus  would 
rejoice  with  joy  unspeakable,  that  He  could  do  that 
thing.  We  can  understand  how,  when  looking  down 
on  this  world  with  its  sin  and  misery  and  want  and 
woe  and  mountainous  iniquity,  there  would  be  ever 
in  His  heart  the  exultant  joy  of  knowing  that  it  was 
He  who,  in  due  time,  should  come  down  here  and  get 
underneath  all  that  unspeakable  guilt,  and  bear  it 
away  from  man  up  to  the  cross.    Just  as  Jean  Valjean 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  303 

was  happy  under  the  cart.  It  hurt  him,  but  he  lifted 
it  away  from  the  old  man  who  was  being  crushed  by 
it.  There  was  joy  in  doing  it,  a  joy  in  getting 
underneath  it,  a  joy  in  the  very  pain  which  it  cost 
to  do  it. 

"But  I  have  a  baptism  to  be  baptized  with;   and  how  am  I 
straitened  till  it  be  accomplished!"  —  Luke  12:50 

Put  over  against  this  the  introspective  self  pity, 
which  keeps  us  forever  occupied  with  our  own  little 
round  of  common  sorrows  and  infirmities,  such  as 
belong  to  the  life  here,  and  such  as  one  would  say 
ought  to  be  manfully  borne.  My  friends,  farther 
than  the  east  is  from  the  west  or  the  brightest  sun- 
light from  the  darkness  of  midnight,  is  this  Christ 
temper  of  soul  from  the  pettiness  of  a  self-centered 
life.  The  joy  of  vicarious  suffering,  the  joy  of  getting 
underneath  all  that  was  bearing  down  the  heart  of 
humanity  and  lifting  it  helpfully  away,  —  this  was 
the  joy  of  the  Lord. 

You  know  how  very  easily  this  truth  finds  illus- 
tration. Surely  Winkelried  must  have  felt  something 
of  that  joy  when  he  gathered  the  spears  of  the 
enemy  into  his  own  bosom,  that  he  might  break  the 
hostile  line  and  make  way  for  liberty.  There  must 
have  been  in  his  heart  an  ineffable  joy  as  he  felt  those 
spears  crushing  into  it  and  his  life  going  out.  It  was 
a  joyful  thing  so  to  die. 

There  was  another  source  of  the  joy  of  the  Lord. 
He  rejoiced  in  the  will  of  God.  Will  you  consider 
that  for  a  moment?    What  a  joyful  thing  it  is  not 


304  IN   MANY  PULPITS 

to  be  left  alone  in  this  world!  What  a  joyful  thing 
to  know  that  one  is  not  the  sport  of  circumstances 
nor  of  accident;  not  in  a  world  where  things  are 
suffered  to  take  their  course;  not  orphaned  amidst 
all  these  destructive  forces  that  move  in  upon  us, 
as  children  of  God  in  this  world;  to  know  in  short, 
that  over  all  there  is  the  resistless  will  of  God.  Things 
are  not  happening  to  the  children  of  God.  We  are 
moving  upon  an  appointed  course,  and  the  joys  and 
sorrows  of  our  life  are  all  appointed  and  portioned 
out,  moulding  and  shaping  us  for  better  things.  We 
have  our  rejoicing,  not  in  the  pain,  not  in  the  de- 
privation, not  in  the  disappointment,  but  in  the  great 
overmastering  will  which  has  sent  these  things. 

Then  again,  what  a  joy  the  Lord  found  in  His 
mission  of  salvation. 

"How  think  ye?  if  a  man  have  an  hundred  sheep,  and  one 
of  them  be  gone  astray,  doth  he  not  leave  the  ninety  and 
nine,  and  goeth  into  the  mountains,  and  seeketh  that 
which  is  gone  astray? 

And  if  so  be  that  he  find  it,  verily  I  say  unto  you,  he 
rejoiceth  more  of  that  sheep,  than  of  the  ninety  and  nine 
which  went  not  astray."  —  Matthew  18:12,  13 

The  joy  of  being  a  Saviour!  Dear  friends,  how  great 
a  thing  it  is  to  have  one  soul  saved,  to  have  hell 
closed  and  glory  opened  forever  to  one  more  im- 
mortal soul !  Jesus  rejoicing  over  one  sheep,  and  the 
angels  rejoicing  with  Him!  This  was  the  joy  of  the 
Lord  Jesus.    Isaiah  brings  it  out: 

"He  shall  see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul,  and  shall  be  sat- 
isfied:"—  Isaiah  53:11 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.  SCOFIELD  305 

The  joy  of  coming  underneath  human  guilt  as  well 
as  sorrow  and  pain  and  burden,  and  bearing  that 
guilt  away  vicariously,  that  is  the  supreme  joy  of 
the  Lord,  —  the  joy  of  suffering  that  others  might 
not  suffer.  I  think  that  pilot  who  kept  his  burning 
boat  against  the  shore  until  every  passenger  was  safe, 
though  his  own  hands  were  burning  to  a  crisp  as  he 
held  the  wheel,  must  have  known  a  joy  greater  than 
the  pain.  This  is  a  very  high  kind  of  joy.  I  think 
that  captain  who  stood  upon  the  deck  of  his  sinking 
ship,  and  gave  his  place  in  the  last  boat  to  a  poor 
stowaway  who  had  no  kind  of  claim  upon  him,  and 
saw  the  stowaway  pass  on  into  safety,  while  he  went 
down  with  his  ship,  must  have  drunk  deeply  of  this 
joy  of  suffering.  Paul  was  in  the  very  fellowship  of 
this  compensating  joy  when  he  wrote: 

"Who  now  rejoice  in  my  sufferings  for  you,  and  fill  up  that 
which  is  behind  of  the  afflictions  of  Christ  in  my  flesh  for 
his  body's  sake,  which  is  the  church:"  —  Colossians  1:24 

If  He  suffered  the  others  were  spared ;  there  was  joy 
in  that.  But  this  joy  of  vicarious  suffering  is  not 
the  only  source  of  the  joy  of  the  Lord.  There  are 
passages  in  which  others  are  indicated. 

"In  that  hour  Jesus  rejoiced  in  spirit,  and  said,  I  thank 
thee,  O  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  that  thou  hast 
hid  these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and  hast 
revealed  them  unto  babes:"  —  Luke  10:21 

Do  you  know  what  that  meant?  Jesus  had  sent  out 
the  seventy  to  announce  the  kingdom  as  at  hand;  to 


806  IN   MANY    PULPITS 

go  everywhere,  into  all  the  villages  and  sound  the  glad 
tidings,  that  at  last  Israel's  King  had  come,  and  that 
the  kingdom  was  ready.  And  they  returned  filled 
with  pride  and  gratification  that  the  demons  had  been 
subject  to  them.  They  had  not  made  one  convert! 
The  mission  to  Israel  was  an  absolute  failure  —  Jesus 
saw  that.  The  thing  was  hid  from  the  rulers,  was  hid 
from  the  nation,  and  was  revealed  to  a  few  fishermen 
and  tax-gatherers  and  converted  harlots.  In  that 
hour  Jesus  rejoiced  in  spirit!  Why?  Hear  His  own 
words: 

"for  so  it  seemed  good  in  thy  sight."  —  Luke  10:21 

In  the  Hebrews  we  are  told  of  another  source  of 
joy  which  sustained  our  Lord  in  the  supreme  agony 
on  the  cross. 

'Looking  unto  Jesus  the  author  and  finisher  of  our  faith; 
who  for  the  joy  that  was  set  before  him  endured  the  cross, 
despising  the  shame,"  —  Hebrews  12:2 

The  joy  of  final  consummation;  the  joy  in  antici- 
pation of  the  fruition  of  all  His  suffering,  when 
He  should  see  and  eternally  enjoy  the  results  of  it; 
the  joy  of  putting  away  the  sins  of  men,  of  transform- 
ing them  into  His  own  image,  and  of  sharing  with 
them  the  eternal  felicities.  All  this  was  with  Him 
helpfully  in  the  supreme  hour.  That  is  what  we  need 
to  see.  Beyond  question  we  do  not  live  enough  in  the 
inspiration  of  the  compensations  and  balancing  of 
heaven. 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.  SCOFIELD  307 

Turn  now  for  a  moment  to  the  other  thought  —  the 
human  side  of  joy. 

"That  they  might  have  my  joy  fulfilled  in  themselves." 

—  John  17:13 

What  does  the  Lord  mean,  that  we  shall  have  His 
joy?  How  shall  we  have  the  joy  of  the  Lord?  Evi- 
dently, dear  friends,  it  is  an  arduous  matter;  it  is  a 
call  to  unselfish  heights.  If  we  are  to  share  the  joy 
of  the  Lord,  we  must  be  willing  to  share  that  out  of 
which  sprang  His  joy.  We  must  rejoice  if  we  can 
bear  away  some  sorrow  from  another  heart,  some 
burden  from  another  life.  We  must  learn  to  rejoice, 
as  we  never  yet  have  learned  to  rejoice,  in  the  salva- 
tion of  the  lost.    We  read  that  there 

"is  joy  in  the  presence  of  the  angels  of  God  over  one  sinner 
that  repenteth."  —  Luke  15:10 

Sometimes  we  "get  up"  a  revival,  and  after  it  is  over 
and  we  are  asked  concerning  the  success  of  the  meet- 
ing, answer  that  it  was  a  disappointment,  only  (say) 
ten  converted.  We  must  get  out  of  that,  and  like 
the  angels  of  God  rejoice 

"over  one  sinner  that  repenteth."  —  Luke  15:10 

Then  we  must  turn  our  thoughts  more  towards  the 
future,  towards  the  heavenly  rest,  the  heavenly  activ- 
ities and  the  eternal  joys  which  are  there.  I  repeat 
it  is  a  trumpet  call.  It  costs  something  to  have  the 
joy  of  the  Lord.  Salvation,  with  its  joy,  is  a  free  gift, 
but  the  joy  of  the  Lord  is  to  be  had  only  by  entering 


508  IN    MANY    PULPITS 

into  fellowship  with  the  Lord  in  His  path;  to 
be,  in  the  measure  of  our  capacity,  Christs  in  the 
world ;  to  get  with  Him  into  the  joy  of  suffering;  the 
joy  of  the  great  sweet  will  of  God;  the  expectation 
of  the  things  to  come. 

It  was  a  great  thing  for  humanity  when  that 
strange  being,  Peter  the  Hermit,  went  through  Eu- 
rope preaching  the  crusades.  It  was  a  call  to  barons 
and  knights  to  cease  their  petty  neighborhood  wars; 
their  pompous  and  empty  way  of  life;  their  tilting 
at  wooden  blocks  in  the  castle  yard;  their  f eastings 
in  castle  halls;  and  to  go  forth  and  do  an  unselfish 
thing  —  to  rescue  an  empty  tomb.  It  was  the  letting 
in  of  the  light.  It  was  the  lifting  of  men  out  of  their 
narrowness  and  mean  conception  of  life. 

Is  there  not  a  perpetual  crusade  being  preached 
from  the  blessed  Word,  calling  us  up  out  of  the 
petty  things  in  which  our  lives  are  being  frittered 
away;  a  crusade  which  calls  us  to  go  out  upon 
Christ's  own  great  emprise  of  salvation  into  the  utter- 
most parts  of  the  earth?  There  is  something  in  this 
that  ought  to  lay  hold  of  the  nobler  side  of  us  —  that 
ought  to  have  power  to  redeem  us  from  small  and 
ignoble  things,  that  ought  to  lift  us  into  that  clear, 
pure  atmosphere  of  suffering.  Yes,  but  also  of  the 
unspeakable  joy  of  the  Lord,  a 

"joy  no  man  taketh  from  you."  —  John  16:22 


THE   LOVELINESS   OF   CHRIST 


THE   LOVELINESS   OF   CHRIST 

"Yea,  he  is  altogether  lovely."  —  Song  of  Solomon  5:16 

JESUS  CHRIST  is  the  only  being  of  whom,  with- 
out gross  flattery,  it  could  be  asserted,  "He  is 
altogether  lovely."  All  other  greatness  has  been 
marred  by  littleness,  all  other  wisdom  has  been  flawed 
by  folly,  all  other  goodness  has  been  tainted  by  im- 
perfection. 

It  seems  to  me,  this  loveliness  of  Christ  consists 
first  of  all  in  His  perfect  humanity.  Understand  me, 
I  do  not  now  mean  that  He  was  a  perfect  human,  but 
that  He  was  perfectly  human.  In  everything  but 
our  sins,  and  our  evil  natures,  he  is  one  with  us.  He 
grew  in  stature,  and  in  grace.  He  labored,  and  wept, 
and  prayed,  and  loved.  He  was  tempted  in  all  points 
as  we  are  —  sin  apart.  With  Thomas,  we  confess 
him  Lord  and  God;  we  adore  and  revere  Him.  But, 
beloved,  there  is  no  other  who  establishes  with  us 
such  intimacy,  who  comes  so  close  to  these  human 
hearts  of  ours;  no  one  in  the  universe  of  whom  we 
are  so  little  afraid.  He  enters  as  simply  and  natu- 
rally into  our  twentieth  century  lives  as  if  He  had 
been  reared  in  the  same  street.     He  is  not  one  of  the 

311 


812  IN   MANY   PULPITS 

ancients.  How  wholesomely  and  genuinely  human 
He  is.  Martha  scolds  Him;  John,  who  has  seen  Him 
raise  the  dead,  still  the  tempest  and  talk  with  Moses 
and  Elijah  on  the  Mount,  does  not  hesitate  to  make 
a  pillow  of  His  breast  at  supper.  Peter  will  not  let 
Him  wash  his  feet,  but  afterwards  wants  His  head 
and  hands  included  in  the  ablution.  They  ask  Him 
foolish  questions,  and  rebuke  Him,  and  venerate  and 
adore  Him  all  in  a  breath ;  and  He  calls  them  by  their 
first  name,  and  tells  them  to  fear  not,  and  assures 
them  of  His  love.  In  all  this  He  seems  to  me  alto- 
gether lovely.  His  perfection  does  not  glitter,  it 
glows.  The  saintliness  of  Jesus  is  so  warm  and 
human  it  attracts  and  inspires.  We  find  in  it  nothing 
austere  and  inaccessible,  like  a  statue  in  a  niche. 
The  beauty  of  His  holiness  reminds  one  rather  of  a 
rose,  or  a  bank  of  violets. 

O,  my  readers,  I  protest  with  all  my  mind  against 
the  cold  abstraction  which  mysticism  and  theology 
have  made  and  labeled  "Jesus."  The  real  Jesus  — 
He  of  Nazareth  and  of  the  glory  —  is  so  perfectly 
holy  that  He  does  not  need  to  insist  upon  it.  Our 
little  righteousnesses  are  so  puny  that  they  must  be 
obtruded,  and  coddled,  and  accentuated  by  Pharisai- 
cal drawings  away  of  the  skirts,  and  the  setting  up  of 
little  standards  of  differences  between  sinner  and 
sinner.  Jesus  receives  sinners  and  eats  with  them  — 
all  kinds  of  sinners.  Nicodemus,  the  moral,  religious 
sinner,  and  Mary  of  Magdala, 

"out  of  whom  went  seven  devils"  —  Luke  8:2 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.   SCOFIELD  313 

the  shocking  kind  of  sinner.  He  comes  into  sinful 
lives  as  a  bright,  clear  stream  enters  a  stagnant  pool. 
The  stream  is  not  afraid  of  contamination,  but  its 
sweet  energy  cleanses  the  pool. 

I  remark  again,  and  as  connected  with  this,  that 
His  sympathy  is  altogether  lovely.  He  is  always 
being 

"moved  with  compassion."  —  Matthew  9:36 

The  multitude  without  a  shepherd,  the  sorrowing 
widow  of  Nain,  the  little  dead  child  of  the  ruler,  the 
demoniac  of  Gadara,  the  hungry  five  thousand  — 
whatever  suffers  touches  Jesus.  His  very  wrath 
against  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  is  but  the  excess  of 
His  sympathy  for  those  who  suffer  under  their  hard 
self-righteousness. 

Did  you  ever  find  Jesus  looking  for  "deserving 
poor?"    He   ' 

"healed  all  that  were  sick."  —  Matthew  8:16 

And  what  grace  in  His  sympathy !  Why  did  He  touch 
that  poor  leper?  He  could  have  healed  him  with  a 
word  as  He  did  the  nobleman's  son.  Why,  for  years 
the  wretch  had  been  an  outcast,  cut  off  from  kin,  de- 
humanized. He  had  lost  the  sense  of  being  a  man. 
It  was  defilement  to  approach  him.  Well,  the  touch 
of  Jesus  made  him  human  again.  A  Christian  woman, 
laboring  among  the  moral  lepers  of  London,  found  a 
poor  street  girl  desperately  ill  in  a  bare,  cold  room. 
With  her  own  hands  she  ministered  to  her,  changing 
her  bed  linen,  procuring  medicines,  nourishing  food, 


314  IN    MANY    1TL1MTS 

a  fire,  and  making  the  poor  place  as  bright  and  cheery 
as  possible.  Then  she  said,  "May  I  pray  with  you?" 
"No,"  said  the  girl,  "you  don't  care  for  me;  you  are 
doing  this  to  get  to  heaven."  Many  days  passed,  the 
Christian  woman  unwearily  kind,  the  sinful  girl  hard 
and  bitter.  At  last  the  Christian  said:  "My  dear, 
you  are  nearly  well  now,  and  I  shall  not  come  again, 
but  as  it  is  my  last  visit,  I  want  you  to  let  me  kiss 
you,"  and  the  pure  lips  that  had  known  only  prayers 
and  holy  words  met  the  lips  defiled  by  oaths  and  by 
unholy  caresses  —  and  then,  my  friends,  the  hard 
heart  broke.    That  was  Christ's  way. 

Can  you  fancy  Him  calling  a  convention  of  phari- 
sees  to  discuss  methods  of  reaching  the  "masses"? 
And  that  leads  me  to  remark  that  His  humility  was 
altogether  lovely,  and  He,  the  only  one  who  ever  had 
the  choice  of  how  and  where  He  should  be  born,  en- 
tered this  life  as  one  of  "the  masses."  With  a  gesture 
he  could  have  caused  to  rise  about  that  birth  couch 
the  walls  of  a  palace  filled  with  every  luxury,  but  He 
chose  a  stable  for  a  birth  chamber  and  a  manger  for 
a  cradle. 

"The  foxes  have  holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have 
nests;  but  the  Son  of  man  hath  not  where  to  lay  his 
head."  —  Matthew  8:20 

During  all  His  public  ministry  he  had  not  where  to 
lay  His  head.  Why?  That  the  poorest  wretch  on 
earth  might  feel  that  God  could  really  sympathize 
with  him. 

The  other  day  I  received  a  letter  from  a  poor  prodi- 


WITH  DR.   C.   I.   SCOFIELD  315 

gal  who,  when  he  wrote,  had  been  two  days  without 
food  or  bed.  "At  night,"  he  says,  "I  think  that  my 
Lord,  too, 

'hath  not  where  to  lay  his  head.'  "  —  Matthew  8:20 

What  meekness,  what  lowliness! 

"I  am  among  you  as  he  that  serveth."  —  Luke  22:27 
"After  that  he  .  .  .  began  to  wash  the  disciples'   feet." 

—  John  13:5 
"When  he  was  reviled,  he  reviled  not  again."  —  /  Peter  2:23 
"As  a  sheep  before  her  shearers  is  dumb,  so  he  openeth 
not  his  mouth."  —  Isaiah  53:7 

Can  you  think  of  Jesus  posing  and  demanding  His 
rights? 

But  it  is  in  His  way  with  sinners  that  the  supreme 
loveliness  of  Jesus  is  most  sweetly  shown.  How 
gentle  He  is,  yet  how  faithful;  how  considerate,  how 
respectful!  Nicodemus,  candid  and  sincere,  but 
proud  of  his  position  as  a  master  in  Israel,  and  timid 
lest  he  should  imperil  it,  comes 

"to  Jesus  by  night."  —  John  7:50 

Before  he  departs,  Nicodemus  has  learned  his  utter 
ignorance  of  the  first  step  toward  the  kingdom,  and 
goes  away  to  think  over  the  personal  application  of 

"men  loved   darkness   rather   than   light,   because   their 
deeds  were  evil."  —  John  3:19 

But  he  has  not  heard  one  harsh  word,  one  utterance 
that  can  wound  his  self  respect. 


S16  IN  MANY   PULPITS 

Follow  Jesus  to  Jacob's  well  at  high  noon  and  hear 
His  conversation  with  the  woman  of  Samaria.  How 
patiently  He  unfolds  the  deepest  truths,  how  gently 
yet  faithfully  He  presses  the  great  ulcer  of  sin  which 
is  eating  away  her  soul.  He  could  not  be  more  re- 
spectful to  Mary  of  Bethany.  When  He  speaks  to 
the  silent,  despairing  woman  taken  in  adultery  after 
her  accusers  have  gone  out  one  by  one,  He  uses  the 
same  word  for  "woman"  as  that  with  which  He  ad- 
dresses His  own  mother  from  the  cross.  It  is  as  if 
He  said,  "Madame." 

"Woman,  .  .   .  hath  no  man  condemned  thee?"  —  John  8:10 

Even  in  the  agonies  of  death  Jesus  could  hear  the 
cry  of  despairing  faith.  When  conquerors  return 
from  far  wars  in  strange  lands  they  bring  their  chief- 
est  captive  as  a  trophy.  It  was  enough  for  Christ  to 
take  back  to  heaven  the  soul  of  a  thief. 

Yea,  he  is  altogether  lovely.  And  now  I  have  left 
myself  no  time  to  speak  of  his  loveliness,  of  his  gentle 
dignity,  of  his  virile  manliness,  of  his  perfect  courage. 
There  is  in  Jesus  a  perfect  equipoise  of  various  per- 
fections. All  the  elements  of  perfect  character  are  in 
lovely  balance.  His  gentleness  is  never  weak.  His 
courage  is  never  brutal.  My  friends,  you  may  study 
these  things  for  yourselves.  Follow  Him  through  all 
the  scenes  of  outrage  and  insult  on  the  night  and 
morning  of  His  arrest  and  trial.  Behold  him  before 
the  high  priest,  before  Herod,  before  Pilate.  See 
Him  browbeaten,  bullied,  scourged,  smitten  upon  the 
face,  spit  upon,  mocked.    Now  His  inherent  greatness 


WITH  DR.   C.  I.  SCOFIELD  317 

comes  out.  Not  once  does  He  lose  His  self-poise,  His 
high  dignity. 

Let  us  follow  Him  still  further.  Go  with  the  jeer- 
ing crowd  without  the  gate;  see  Him  stretched  upon 
the  great  rough  cross  and  hear  the  dreadful  sound  of 
the  sledge  as  the  spikes  are  forced  through  His 
hands  and  feet.  As  the  yelling  mob  falls  back,  see 
the  cross,  bearing  this  gentlest,  sweetest,  bravest, 
loveliest  man,  upreared  until  it  falls  into  its  socket  in 
the  rock. 

"And  sitting  down,  they  watched  him  there;" 

—  Matthew  27:36 

You  watch,  too.  Hear  Jesus  ask  the  Father  to  for- 
give His  murderers,  hear  all  the  cries  from  the  cross. 
Is  He  not  altogether  lovely?    What  does  it  all  mean? 

"Who  his  own  self  bare  our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the 

tree,"  —  /  Peter  2:24 
"And  by  him  all  that  believe  are  justified  from  all  things." 

—  Acts  13:39 
"Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  He  that  believeth  on  me 

hath  everlasting  life."  —  John  6:47 

I  close  with  a  word  of  personal  testimony, 

"This  is  my  beloved,  and  this  is  my  friend." 

—  Song  of  Solomon  5:16 

Will  you  not  accept  Him  as  your  Saviour,  and  Be- 
loved, and  Friend  —  this  gentle,  lovely  Jesus? 

"Neither  is  there  salvation  in  any  other:  for  there  is  none 
other  name  under  heaven  given  among  men,  whereby 
we  must  be  saved."  —  Acts  4:12 


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